The Hermit Gunther and Prince Břetislav

He was of the princely house of Thuringia, in his youth a soldier and afterwards a hermit in the Bohemian Forest, where a mountain is called after Saint Gunther to this day. According to the legend he used to come as far as Prague and baptised Prince Oldřich's little son Břetislav; it is otherwise related that Prince Břetislav found him while hunting. Gunther knew the border mountains well, and it is said that he showed the way into Bohemia to the German Emperor Henry, whom Břetislav nevertheless gloriously defeated at Brůdek in 1040. But the Bohemian prince forgave Gunther and is said to have often stayed with him in his solitude; so he visited him in 1045 as well, and the hermit then said to him: 'The end of my life is now drawing near; therefore I earnestly beg of you that you do well by the monastery of Břevnov, for there my body is to rest.' Břetislav fulfilled his wish, carried the body to Břevnov and buried it in the new church before the altar of Saint Stephen. To that grave many made pilgrimage from Bohemia and the surrounding lands until the Hussite wars; then Gunther's remains were hidden in the church at Police, where they were not found until 1684, brought back to Břevnov in 1716 and ten years later laid in the altar of the Blessed Gunther. On that altar his death is depicted in the presence of Prince Břetislav.