The Builder the Devil Was Said to Have Taken

The legend names as builder a certain Bohuslav Staněk, called the Silken. This young builder sought the hand of Anežka, daughter of the Prague burgomaster Václav of Rokycany; but her father refused him until he should win fortune and a name by his art. Then Bohuslav drew a bold and ingenious plan for the church and laid it before the king. Charles IV took counsel with Matthias of Arras, approved the plan and promised Staněk that he would make him royal builder if he carried out that great work successfully. The building prospered, but Jaroš, Bohuslav's rival, spread evil rumours that the vault would not hold once the scaffolding was taken away. The building was completed, the emperor came and a great crowd gathered — but the workmen would not dismantle the scaffolding for fear it should fall on them. Then the builder set fire to the timber himself; perhaps he did so on the advice of the devil, to whom he is said to have bound himself when his sweetheart's father refused him. The mighty scaffolding came crashing down with a great din, and men hired by Jaroš cried out that the vault was falling. In the great consternation Anežka fainted and the unhappy builder vanished. But when the scaffolding had burned away, the majestic dome remained undamaged. In vain did they look for Bohuslav, whom the king wished to dub a knight; people said the devil had taken him. Thirty years later, however, an old monk appeared in the graveyard by this church. It was Bohuslav, who had become a monk abroad; he had come home and died on the grave of his Anežka, who soon after that day of terror had entered the convent of Saint Anne and was buried here according to her wish. That it was Bohuslav they knew by his ring, which bore the letters A. R. — Anežka Rokycanova. So they buried him beside Anežka, and when word spread of the return and death of the builder of the Karlov church, half Prague came to the funeral. Ruth himself remarks that the tale arose from the fact that the span and construction of the church are most unusual: the huge nave is a regular octagon almost twenty-four metres across, spanned by a bold star vault only twenty centimetres thick.