The Knight on the White Horse at the Horse Gate

The knight Weyhrother tells this legend. It was in 1757 when an armed knight on a white horse suddenly appeared at midnight before the Horse Gate with a banner in his hand and ordered the officer of the guard to open the gate for him. No one knew him, but all thought he resembled Saint Wenceslas as he is painted; and the mysterious knight himself declared that he was riding to the help of our army against its enemies. When the gate was opened the rider vanished at once into the darkness. The next day came the battle of Kolín, where General Count Daun defeated the Prussian king. And the Czech soldiers who returned to Prague from that battle told how in the fighting they had seen Saint Wenceslas on a white horse with a banner in his hand, hovering above them — and how his appearance had fired them to unconquerable valour.