Horymír versus Březové Hory

"Nobody suspected anything bad at the Birch Mines," writes Alois Jirásek in his tale About Kresomysl and Horymír. The miners went to bed safely that night and were only awakened by fire and smoke when the roofs above their heads began to burn late at night. "They rushed out as if bewildered, or carried out property and implements, and sought the children. Then Horymir's men came upon them, cutting them with swords and stabbing them with spears. Vladyka himself, on Shemik, was passing between the huts with his sword in his hand, and again in the mines by the pits, shouting to his own to spoil, to destroy everything."

Even with a detour through Neumetely, Horymír managed to return to Vyšehrad by morning. The rest of the legend is already known. When Prince Kresomysl learned of the tragedy that had befallen his miners, he had the Neumethel vladyk thrown into prison. His last wish, to ride on Šemík, resulted in the legendary jump from the Vyšehrad rock into the Vltava River and his subsequent flight across the Zbraslav plain to the Neumětels. The next day Horymír returned to Vyšehrad, where Křesomysl forgave him.

However, the dispute between the Neumětel vladyka and the miners of Březohorie had already been set up earlier. "During the reign of Kresomysl, people looked more to the mountains than to ploughing and herds. Too many went in search of metals in the depths of the earth," says Jirásek. Prince Kresomysl encouraged mining, even gave privileges to miners and valued the shiny metals more than bread. Václav Hájek from Libočany writes: "The mountains in Březové, otherwise in Příbram, yielded a lot of silver, and the silver miners brought such benefits that everyone was surprised. Therefore many were given to it, and thereby became very rich in money and silver, but the bread winners perished."

There was a competitive struggle between the miners and the chiefs who were engaged in agriculture. A deputation led by Horymir went to Vyšehrad to complain to the prince. Kresomysl, however, rebuffed her. When the miners of Pribram learned of this episode, they organized revenge. One night they stormed Neumetle, set fire to Horymír's fortress and took the booty. Horymír led Šemík out of the stable and managed to escape. "Let me be black as coal, let them cut me with my own sword, if I do not avenge all this, if I do not repay them! And more, and worse!" he is said to have exclaimed towards the fire. The retaliation of the Birch Mountain soon followed.

The problem with the whole tale? Its author

For Czech history, the 9th century represents a kind of empty landscape. A gap that is filled almost exclusively with legends, myths and legends. The alleged feud between Horymír and Kresomysl, which was supposed to have taken place in 846, falls precisely into this period. However, the chronicler Kosmas, the main source of information about the old Bohemian legends, does not know this story. And Horymír is not mentioned by Dalimil either. Kosmas does name Prince Kresomysl, but only as one of a number. Václav Hájek of Libočany comes up with the tale.

Thus, Vladyka Horymír and his faithful horse Šemík do not come to life until the 16th century. Did Hájek make them up? That remains a mystery. It could have been a story that was traditional among the local inhabitants. Václav Hájek worked for a while as a parish priest in Rožmital pod Třemšínem, so perhaps he could have got acquainted with the local legend here. This would explain why Kosmas did not record it - perhaps he did not know it, perhaps he did not find it important. Or maybe it simply did not exist in his time, because it is only Hájek's work. He could have adapted the original medieval narrative and set it back several centuries. It is hard to suppose that a tale that glorifies a feudal lord at the expense of his subjects would have survived in an anonymous oral tradition until 1541.

Similarities - and more than one - can be found here with the story of Tristan and Isolde, a 12th-century French chivalric epic. For example, the king condemns Tristan to death by burning, but he makes a last wish before his death: to pray alone in a chapel above a cliff. When he gets there, he breaks the back window and jumps off the cliff. His faithful horse and sword are waiting for him on the shore. The Bohemian Shemik is not original either, he comes from the German heroic epic, the Rosengarten, but he is already found in the old saga of Thidrekság. There he is called Skemming.

Mining activity in the Birch Mountains from the 12th century onwards

Other counter-arguments lie in the historical improbability of the whole story. The legend assumes that silver and precious metal mining was developed, but it did not exist at the beginning of the 9th century. Archaeological excavations suggest the beginnings of mining in the vicinity of Bohutín (near the Prokop's Grove) in the last centuries BC, but most of the remains of mining activity in the Litavka valley (between Bohutín and Březové Hory) date back to the 12th and especially 13th centuries.

The first written reference is a deed of donation from April 1311, in which the Prague citizen Konrád of Příbram handed over his Příbram smelter to Bishop Jan. It can be assumed that there was also a transition from gold panning to mining in the Příbram region. However, this took place rather near the surface, the optimal deposits were much deeper. By the end of the Middle Ages, a depth of at least 100 metres had been reached at Březové Hory. This was to be proved by an old wood with the year 1523 engraved on it, which was later found at this depth in the premises of the former mine of the Merry Knights (near today's St. Vojtěch Church).

By 1725, only 2 % of the total production of the district had been extracted. Mining in Bohutín and Březové Hory was most important in the 19th and 20th centuries, also thanks to the technical and economic reforms of J. A. Alis. One of his most important interventions was the move to deeper parts of the deposits.

■ Václav Bešt'ák