Gopło: The Lake at the Heart of Polish Culture
The massive Lake Gopło in central Poland has the reputation of one of the most written-about lakes in Polish literature. Culture.pl takes a look at where this reputation comes from, exploring the lake’s ties to a dramatic mediaeval legend, and presenting examples of how Gopło was described by important Polish writers like Ignacy Krasicki and Jadwiga Łuszczewska.
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Mouse Tower in Kruszwica, photo: Wojciech Wójcik / Forum
The elongated Lake Gopło in central Poland’s region of Kujawy is one of the country’s biggest bodies of water. With a surface area of approximately 21 square kilometres, it’s considered the tenth (or ninth, according to other estimates) largest lake in Poland. It’s surrounded by meadows, forests and fields and the river Noteć passes through it. On Gopło’s northern shore lies the town of Kruszwica, where you can find Mysia Wieża (Mouse Tower), an architectural monument dating back to the 14th century. The octagonal tower is a remnant of a once-existing castle and is 32 metres tall.
Gopło’s unique status stems from the fact that the lake is linked to one of Poland’s most ancient and popular legends – about the mythical pre-Polish ruler Popiel who was eaten by mice.
The story goes that the evil Popiel poisoned his uncles and after they died he wouldn’t allow them to be buried. Because of the rotting corpses, a huge swarm of mice appeared and attacked the vile ruler. He ran for his life and tried to seek refuge in a tower, but stuck there, he was eventually eaten by the rodents. After Popiel, the reign over his lands was taken up by the ancestors of Mieszko I – the first historical ruler of Poland, who lived in the 10th century. Therefore the legend about Popiel is tied to the very roots of Polish history.
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Quite probably every single Pole has heard about king Popiel, who was eaten by mice. […] The legend carries the moral that justice shall always be done and the villain will always be punished, even if he’s a king.
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From ‘Popiel zjedzony przez myszy. Czy legenda jest prawdziwa?’, a 2020 article at Onet.pl, trans. MK
Popiel being eaten by mice, 1581, photo: Wikipedia The aforementioned legend dates back to the 12th century and has various iterations, but the one that’s arguably most popular places the tower where Popiel perished in Kruszwica on Lake Gopło. Thanks to this, Gopło is strongly associated with the dramatic story of this ruler and the prehistory of the Polish state. It’s worth pointing out, however, that Mouse Tower was built long after Popiel’s supposed death somewhere around the 9th century and its name merely echoes his legend.
A version of Popiel’s legend where Lake Gopło plays an important part can be found in Jan Długosz’s 15th-century Annales, one of Poland’s most important historical chronicles. Here’s an excerpt from this classic work:
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[Popiel] ordered that he, his wife and children be taken on a boat across the huge lake, to take refuge in a wooden tower, surrounded on all sides by water […]. But through all the waters and depths which he crossed, the mice swam chasing him from different sides, and when they got to the boat, they pressed against it and gnawed at it from below.
According to Długosz’s narrative, Popiel eventually reaches the tower in Kruszwica where he’s devoured by the mice. As a ruler he’s replaced by the mythical Piast, a simple farmer living in Kruszwica and the mythical protoplast of Mieszko I’s Piast dynasty (in other versions of the legend, Popiel is succeeded by Piast’s son Siemowit).
After Poland lost its independence in the 18th century due to the partitions, Poles began to be more and more nostalgic about the notion of Polish statehood. That was when the various legends about the beginning of the Polish state, such as the tale of Popiel, Piast and Lake Gopło, gained new popularity. They legends also attracted the attention of Polish writers and poets, which led to Gopło appearing in a number of noted literary works. Let’s take a look at some of them.
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An illustration by Jan Piotr Norblin for ‘The Mouseiad’, photo: Polona.pl
Three years after the first partition of Poland, in 1775, the renowned Enlightenment poet and writer Ignacy Krasicki published his mock-heroic poem Myszeida (The Mouseiad). This curious work references the legend of Popiel, but describes a war fought between… anthropomorphised cats and mice. It’s considered a critique of the flaws of 18th century Poland’s nobility, including their egoism and brawling. The Mouseiad includes the character of Popiel (in human form) who sides with the cats and wants to eliminate all mice in his kingdom. Like in the original legend, he ends up being eaten by them.
The following description of Lake Gopło can be found in The Mouseiad:
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Among vast and fertile fields it lies
Gopło, the lake whose fame is great;
Birches, poplars, beech from ancient times
Grace its shoreline with their shade.
There for shelter many a bird flies,
Joyous echoes with its shouts it makes;
Valleys, hillocks live and green
Present to the view a pleasant scene.
The story of Popiel was also retold in the 1843 children’s book Dzieje Polski, Które Stryj Synowcom Swoim Opowiedział (The History of Poland, as Told by an Uncle to his Nephews). Written by the noted historian and politician Joachim Lelewel, the book includes a number of legends about the origins of the Polish state. The History of Poland is said to have largely popularised these legends among Poland’s youngest readers. The version of the tale of Popiel given by Lelewel is set on Lake Gopło:
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From the bodies of the uncles, thrown into Lake Gopło, a great number of rats and mice came out and swarmed straight toward the duke’s castle in Kruszwica. At the sight of this, all the courtiers ran away. Duke Popiel also ran, but the mice chased him. He ran into the fields, the mice went after him, he tried to escape onto a boat on the lake, the mice swam after him.
Lelewel’s version of Popiel’s legend features the usual ending, but afterwards the writer comments on this story that it’s ‘nothing more than a funny and silly fairy-tale’, alerting the youngest readers to its fictional character.
Echoes of Popiel and Lake Gopło can also be found in the 1816 poem Piast by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz.
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Scene from the play ‘Goplana’ directed by Janusz Wiśniewski, 2016, photo: Krzysztof Bielinski / Teatr Wielki – Polish National Opera
Lake Gopło is also the setting for one of Poland’s most important dramas: 1839’s Balladyna by the esteemed Romantic poet and playwright Juliusz Słowacki. In the introduction to this classic work, its author writes that the tale unfolds ‘in fairy-tale times, on Lake Gopło.’ In this tragic story, the titular hero Balladyna commits a number of heinous crimes in order to become the queen of the Polish lands. Her actions, as well as the fates of other characters in the play, are influenced by a fantastic being – the nymph Goplana who’s the queen of Lake Gopło. The play also features Goplana’s two fantastic servants: Chochlik and Skierka. Here’s an excerpt:
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Skierka
Where’s Goplana, our queen?
Chochlik
She’s still sleeping in Lake Gopło.
Skierka
Neither the scent of pines,
Nor the scent of spring disturbed the sleep
Of our queen? A scent so sweet?
Can’t she hear, how black swallows
Hit their wings against the lake
Staining with thousands of ripples
Its entire face?
Lake Gopło also appears in other works by Słowacki – the 1840 drama Lilla Weneda and the 1847 historiosophical poem Król-Duch (King-Spirit).
A fantastic being somewhat similar to Goplana appears in the 1840 poetical novel Bogunka na Gople (The Water Daemon on Gopło) by the poet and folklorist Ryszard Berwiński. This story, sometimes criticised for its confusing, pseudo-archaic literary style, is set on Lake Gopło during the period Poland was transitioning from paganism to Christianity. One of its main characters is duke Sokół who disrespects the olden traditions and because of that disappears in a forest while chasing a magical deer. Berwiński’s narrative also includes a lengthy song delivered by the bard Bojan, which tells, among other things, about a female daemon or bogunka living in Lake Gopło. The daemon lures fishermen to their doom, drowning them in the lake, but also appears in the form of a deer bewildering hunters in the woods…
Here’s a passage from Berwiński’s book:
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Bright are the waters of Gopło – but dark are its depths; – and although the sky is clear, you can never see the bed through them; – what magic occurs down there, you shall never know. – But ask the fishermen, they’ll tell you unbelievable things about the beautiful damsel Bogunka […]
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Lake Gopło, photo: Wojciech Wójcik / Forum
Lake Gopło also served as an inspiration for a number of poems by Polish authors. Among these writings you can find 1855’s Do Gopła (To Gopło) by the poet and geographer Wincenty Pol. Pol was a renowned geographer – in 184,9 he became the head of Poland’s first department of geography at Kraków’s Jagiellonian University. But he was also a successful poet as evidenced by the fact that one of his works, Śpiew z Mogiły (A Song From a Grave), was illustrated with music by none other than Fryderyk Chopin – the resulting song is titled Leaves are Falling. To Gopło is one of Pol’s many works praising the beauty of Polish nature, which seem to merge his sensibilities as both a geographer and verse writer. Here’s a quote from this intriguing piece:
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Your dark waves, are like a background of past times,
Your mysterious depths, are like a tale of folk kind!...
[…]
Do you listen to the prayers of pious fishermen?
Does spring greet you with a crane’s twittering?
Another poem about Lake Gopło was written in 1879 by the acclaimed modernist poet and translator Jan Kasprowicz. Titled simply Gopło, it was created in the early stages of the poet’s artistic career and is a kind of ode to the grand lake. This charming poem opens with the following verse:
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Between groves, between settlement hills
Rest was found by nature’s wonderful face,
Where vivid blues look out from spring’s embrace,
Over them a crystal smile of fairness spills.
Kasprowicz was born in 1860 in the village of Szymborze (now part of the town Inowrocław) near to Lake Gopło. Fascinated by the landscape of the massive lake, he wrote about it in a number of his early poems such as 1878’s Wieczór nad Gopłem (An Evening on Gopło), 1880’s Przechadzka Nad Gopłem (A Stroll Near Gopło) and 1878’s Mysza-Wieża (Mouse Tower).
Jadwiga Łuszczewska aka Deotyma, 1870, photo: Tygodnik Ilustrowany / Wikipedia Lake Gopło is also featured in Gopło i Lechowa Góra (Gopło & Lech’s Mountain), a poem by the respected Romantic poet and writer Jadwiga Łuszczewska aka Deotyma. Deotyma, who lived in the years 1834-1908, was known for her talent in poetic improvisation and interest in Polish history which she used as a source of inspiration for her literary works. In Gopło & Lech’s Mountain, whose date of creation is hard to establish, the narrator experiences a sort of dream that includes important places and symbols from Poland’s history. Among them are Lake Gopło and the grave of Lech, the mythical protoplast of the Polish nation. Here’s an excerpt:
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These waters are a wonderland!
A living gaze, to me they so appear;
Gopło is the pupil of Poland,
Gopło is its tear.
As you can see Gopło appears in quite a few works by noted Polish writers and poets. It’s worth mentioning, however, that aside from the already discussed writings there are further Polish literary texts mentioning this lake. They include, for example, 1876’s historical novel Stara Baśń (An Ancient Tale) by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski and Mieczysław Romanowski’s drama Popiel i Piast (Popiel & Piast), published in 1913.
In conclusion, it’s hard to say exactly how much a particular lake was written about by Polish authors, given the enormous scope of Polish literature in general. Still, it’s safe to say that Gopło has attracted plenty of attention from important Polish littérateurs, and no doubt continues to inspire today.
Written by Marek Kępa, Feb 21
