And here, a little further along, is the most interesting building known as the Sukiennice, nothing more nor less than the Cloth Hall. In early days, when there were no great department stores and selling agents for goods, the makers of cloth formed a guild or club, which became known throughout the land as the Cloth Guild. They built a great hall in which to display their goods, for there were no shops in those times, as there are now. This building became known as the Cloth Hall. Here the Guild met to discuss the prices they should ask for the finished material, and how much they ought to pay for the raw. The Cloth Guild was one of the richest and most influential of all the Guilds, for people were extravagant in their dress and wore most exquisite materials.
The Sukiennice is a great building of stone with the stairway to the second story running up on the outside of the building; there are queer little turrets, one at each corner, and heavy arcades upon the ground floor, which protect the passers-by from the elements, as well as assist in rendering the interior very dark.
Here, in the city of Cracow, the peasants will tell you of a curious belief among them. The founder of Poland was Lekh, as you all have read. He was supposed to have come from the far south, when quite a grown man; but there are always two sides to every story, as the saying is. And no two historians can agree as to which version is really the correct one concerning Lekh. The peasants here believe that Lekh was born in this very city, and they absolutely refuse to believe anything else. In any event, the story goes that when he was a very young baby, as he was lying in his cradle one day, without any one near, a fierce dragon with three heads tried to devour him; but no harm came to the child, for he grew up safely to manhood. Perhaps his faithful nurse returned in time to avert the threatened danger. However, many, many years later, in this same city of Cracow, in the year 1846, the country of Poland suffered its greatest humiliation, for Cracow was the very last city in the country to fall into the hands of the enemy. And now once more comes the dragon with the three heads; it is the enemy, Austria, Germany and Russia, who joined their forces together to tear beloved Poland into pieces, and this time it won the victory.