User:Laja413/sandbox/Mice Tower

= Mice Tower = Mice Tower (pl. Mysia Wieża) - brick, octagonal tower, 32 meters high, located in Kruszwica, on the Rzępowski Peninsula of Gopło Lake. The interesting thing about its architecture is that it is round inside and that the holes on its wall are not window openings, but scaffolding marks. The tower is a remnant of the castle in Kruszwica, built by King Casimir III the Great around 1350. Initially, it was a stronghold that was to protect Kruszwica from the Teutonic Knights. Then, after the fall of this order, it became the seat of the castellany of Kruszwica and the starosty. It was destroyed (blown up) by the Swedes in 1657; previously, it was occupied by them for two years. The tower survived  and since 1895 it has been a tourist attraction of Kruszwica and a viewpoint. From its top, with good visibility, you can see Inowrocław, Strzelno, and Radziejów.

Legends
There are several legends associated with the Mouse Tower. The name refers to the legend of Popiel, the legendary ruler of Poland, expelled by the prince of Polans, Siemowit (the ancestor of Mieszko I). This legend is quoted in the Polish Chronicle of Gallus Anonymus. This story, however, was to have happened almost four hundred years before the current tower was built, and it is only located in this place by the Chronicle of Greater Poland. A popular theory is that the legend was probably adopted from Western European sources, as a similar story about an evil ruler devoured by mice in a tower exists in Germany and concerns the Mouse Tower in the city of Bingen am Rhein. However, as demonstrated by Jacek Banaszkiewicz, the legend given by Gall Anonymus about the ruler being eaten by mice could not be borrowed from Germany, because it appears earlier, at the stage of "mouse legends" formation, and it is simply an element of the Proto-Indo-European.