The Wandering Stone

On the eastern side of Přemysl Otakar II Square, a short way from Samson’s Fountain toward Hotel Zvon, a stone with a cross lies in the paving. It is called the wandering stone.

According to an old superstition, anyone who unwittingly steps over it after nine in the evening loses their way in the town. They will walk the streets, turn into familiar corners, return to places they have already passed, and will not find the path until night has gone.

That stone, however, recalls more than wandering.

According to one version it happened in 1470, according to another not until 1478. A swordsmith come from Germany was then preparing a conspiracy against the town authority in Budějovice. Around him he gathered a group of young men, mostly journeymen. Among them was the ropemaker’s journeyman Filip Rohrmann.

They met secretly at the Golden Grape inn. There the swordsmith laid his plans, and there the initiates also swore an oath of silence. They bound themselves that no one would betray what was afoot. Whoever broke the oath was to pay for treason with his life.

Yet there was someone in the town who knew of their meetings.

It was Filip’s fiancée Markétka, daughter of the town crier Jan Steinstock. The old crier’s sight was failing, so Markétka helped him on night duty on the town tower. She watched the country in his place, kept an eye on the road to Dobrá Voda and Doubravice, and waited for Filip to come.

At first he would not say where he came from so late. From his hints, though, Markétka gradually understood that he had become entangled in something dangerous. She tried to turn him from it.

One winter evening he came again. In the little room by the crier a light burned; old Steinstock rested aside and Markétka was already waiting for Filip. She begged him not to return to the swordsmith and to leave behind the oath that bound him while there was still time.

Filip was long silent. Then he told her he could promise nothing. He had given his oath, and the next day at the Golden Grape they were to finish what they had begun with the others. Then he left Markétka.

He did not know that old Steinstock was not asleep.

The crier had heard the whole conversation. He said nothing to Markétka and lay quietly on as if truly resting. In the morning he went to the town office, reported what he had overheard in the night, and swore to his testimony.

When dusk fell on Budějovice that evening, the swordsmith’s companions began to drift into the Golden Grape. They came singly, carefully, like people who did not wish to be seen together. At last the swordsmith arrived too, and the council began.

Just as they were speaking inside of what each was to do, the door opened.

In the doorway stood town magistrate Jan Kacenhágl. Constables had meanwhile occupied the exits. In the silence that fell the magistrate called on the conspirators in the name of the law to go with him to the town hall.

Someone cried: “Treason!”

At once the light went out.

In the dark confusion broke out. People pushed over one another; blows sounded, overturned benches and the stamp of feet. In that dark magistrate Jan Kacenhágl was stabbed with a dagger.

By whom, no one ever learned.

The constables nonetheless managed to seize all the conspirators, bind them and take them to the town hall. There interrogation began. The judges wanted a single name: that of the man who had killed the magistrate.

No one spoke it.

They asked again. They threatened punishment. They recalled that for the magistrate’s death the death of all might come. The young men, however, stayed silent. None of them named anyone under interrogation, and none broke the oath of silence.

When the court saw that further questioning would change nothing, it passed a death sentence on all ten. The judgment was to be carried out the very next day.

On the main square, near the site of today’s Samson’s Fountain, public executions were held in the Middle Ages. Beside the gallows a beheading block was prepared, and a crowd gathered on the square to watch.

The condemned came one after another. One after another they laid their heads on the block, and the sentence was carried out. Filip Rohrmann stood last in line and waited his turn.

Before him nine men died who, like him, had not betrayed the killer’s name.

When Filip too was to approach the block, the mayor came to him.

“I grant you your life if you say who killed the magistrate.”

Filip stood where he could see everything that had happened before him. A single name would have been enough.

“Let it be done to me as to the others.”

The sentence was carried out on him too.

The dead were buried in the monastery cemetery. According to the legend a stone with a cross was then set into the paving at the place of execution, and it came to be called the wandering stone.

It still lies there. Most people step over it and nothing happens. Others prefer to avoid it after nine in the evening.