King Popiel and the Mouse Tower

Popiel ruled from Kruszwica over the tribes by Lake Gopło, but he was a weak and idle prince, wholly under the sway of his ambitious wife. She whispered to him that his uncles, the wise elders of the realm, threatened their power.

The uncles had always served and protected the young king faithfully. Yet Popiel, goaded by the queen, resolved to be rid of them so he could rule unopposed.

Popiel invited his uncles to a great feast of reconciliation. He served them wine into which the queen had mixed poison. One after another they died, and the king had the bodies thrown into the lake without honour or burial.

But from the rotting corpses, so the legend says, came a boundless army of mice. They scented the murderer and moved in waves upon his castle.

Terrified, Popiel fled with his wife to the highest tower by the water and barred every door. It availed nothing. The mice gnawed through wood and stone, climbed the stairs and broke into the topmost chamber.

There they devoured the king and the queen until nothing was left of them. So the line of Popiel ended, and by the legend the humble wheelwright Piast succeeded him, forefather of the Polish kings. The tower on Gopło has been called the Mouse Tower ever since.