Page:Cracow - Lepszy.djvu/24

THE ORIGINS OF CRACOW of the plains bordered by the distant chain of the Carpathian Mountains. The water has eaten deep caves into the solid rock of all those hills, and these numerous caves now are valued as the oldest repositories of remains of human civilization in the Stone Age. The interesting results of diggings for objects of this and later periods are to be found in the collections of the Cracow Academy of Sciences, the Archæological Cabinet, and the National Museum.

The first seat of Polish princes and the original centre of State organization was not Cracow, but Gniezno (now Gnesen in Prussian Poland); there, in the later province of Great Poland, on the banks of the Warta and the border of the picturesque lake of Goplo, we must look for the oldest documents of Poland's political existence. Soon, however, a cycle of very old legends centres in Cracow, surrounding its site with a web of poetical stories, and assigning an early date—within the pagan period—to the two extant monuments of this epoch, the grave-mounds or tumuli attributed to Krakus and Wanda. The struggle for independence is the leading feature of these popular legends; the story dealing with the mythical founder of the town tells us how the brave Krakus delivered the people from a haunting terror by killing a dragon that dwelt in a cave of Wawel Hill still to be seen there and exacted a tribute of human victims for its food. Whether owing to the early reception of Christianity, which was introduced to these parts by the two apostles of the Slavonic nations, St. Cyril and St. Methodius, or merely to its own progress in civilization at all events, we find this district on the banks of the Vistula rising into historical importance towards the end of the ninth century. At that time already it was chosen for the bishop's seat. About the middle of the tenth century we meet with the first historical records of a place called Krakw, described as a commercial town belonging to Bohemia, and distant a threedays' journey from Prague. After thirty years of subjection to Bohemia, this province of Little Poland again passes under the sovereignty of Great Poland. Boleslaus the Brave (Chrobry, 992-1025) won a victory, in 999, over the Bohemian troops and