The Stag That Struck Water from the Rock

By legend Saint Wenceslas came this way from a pilgrimage and was thirsty — and a stag struck water from the rock for him with its hooves. Saint Wenceslas drank, was refreshed, and had baths built here; and so his statue was placed by the spring. Those baths, called Pučka and later Bucka, were among the largest in Prague, and as early as 1324 the Crusader Knights of the neighbouring monastery bought the house by the baths and set up a hospital for the poor. The water here was valued chiefly for gout and rheumatism, against headache and weakness of the limbs. The spring, once abundant and much sought after, lost its fame under more recent examination, and in our own time it was all but lost during the building of the sewers.