THE OUTLAW KNIGHT
This legend is about a particularly cruel and bloody robber knight. Robber barons were a real plague of the Middle Ages. The rulers often lacked the resources to fight them, so all the town alliances moved against raubritters, ruthlessly dealing with them. But not necessarily taking in their riches, if they existed at all. More and more legends grew around the treasures, leading the daredevils armed with shovels and pickaxes on night trips to the rotten remains of the old strongholds.
Numerous wars that haunted Pomerania erupted from its surface a considerable part of the castles. Their burnt walls were crumbling with successive ages until only a few of them remained earthen mounds where buried foundations and cellars were hidden. While preparing the illustrations for the collection, I wanted the legends to refer to the glory days of the Duchy of Pomerania and I was inspired by the views of the ruins of the von Dewitz castle in Dobra, near Stargard, probably the most beautiful West Pomeranian castle. Despite the fact that the stronghold has been declining since the Thirty Years' War, and even partially blown up in the 19th century, its significant remains have survived to this day, with romantic late Gothic and Early Renaissance window and door openings and even original plasters.
MY LEGEND ABOUT KNIGHT
"Once upon a time, there lived a knight on Motarzyno Mountain. He captured and robbed travelers, taking some to his castle. There, he sat them down on an iron bull, under which he would light a fire, condemning the poor souls to a horribly painful death. When the knight’s own life came to an end, his body was placed within the castle walls in a silver coffin amidst cursed treasures. And to this day, the head of the iron bull watches over everything."H. A. Haas, Pommersche Blocksberge, "Unser Pommerland Monatsschrift für das Kulturleben der Heimat", 1921, p. 244-246.
MAP OF LEGENDS
Adventure Time for the summer! Here is an interactive map for anyone who would be interested in where to look for places from the legends that I have presented in the Elder Terrors collection. Many marked places are far from the main roads and traveling through rural and dirt roads do not happen to meet the living soul (especially those who are motorized).
ELDER TERRORS
Thanks to the cooperation with Medicine, I managed to implement an idea that was in my head for a very long time. The "Elder Terrors" collection is, in brief, Pomeranian fears. The ones that have been told about one hundred and fifty years ago, and which intentions were to give people goosebumps. These are often forgotten or little-known legends and stories about witches, wild hunts, giants, ghosts, and demons, coming mainly from the area between Lębork and Koszalin, collected for over a century among the oldest inhabitants of the local area.
