Popiel
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/PopielBis1581.jpg/220px-PopielBis1581.jpg)
Prince Popiel (or Duke Popiel) was a legendary 9th-century ruler of the West Slavic ("proto-Polish") tribe of Goplans or Polans, the last member of the pre-Piast dynasty, the Popielids. According to the chroniclers Gallus Anonymus, Jan Długosz and Marcin Kromer, as a consequence of bad rule he was deposed, besieged by his subjects, and eaten alive by mice in a tower in Kruszwica.
As the legend goes, Prince Popiel was a cruel and corrupt ruler who cared only for wine, women, and song. He was greatly influenced by his wife. Due to Popiel's misrule and his failure to defend the land from marauding Vikings, his twelve uncles conspired to depose him. However, at his wife's instigation, he had them all poisoned during a feast. Instead of burning their bodies, as was the custom, he had them cast into Lake Gopło.
When the commoners saw what Popiel and Ryksa had done, they rebelled against their rulers. The princely couple took refuge in a tower near the lake. As the story goes, a throng of mice and rats (which had been feeding on the unburnt bodies of Popiel's uncles) rushed into the tower, chewed through the walls, and devoured Popiel and Ryksa alive. Prince Popiel was succeeded by Piast Kolodziej and Siemowit.
On the shore of Lake Gopło stands a medieval tower, nicknamed the Mouse Tower. However, it can't be the site of the events described in the legend as it was erected some 500 years thereafter.
References
- Tales of the Tower, Warsaw Voice Online, September 8, 2002. (Citing the book Stara Basn (Old Tale), by Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski.)
- The Mouse Tower of Kruszwica
- The Pomeranian and Kujawy Province
- The Old Tale: When the Sun Was God (Polish film about Prince Popiel.)
- Popiel (Website summarizing information from medieval chronicles.)
- Legends of Poland
See also
- Mouse Tower - legend about the cruelty of Hatto II (Archbishop of Mainz).
- An Ancient Tale (novel) - novel by polish writer Kraszewski