The Altar on the Riverbed

Below Vyšehrad there is a deep place in the river — as deep, they say, as the rock is high — and many a person has drowned here. Hence the fancy grew up that the Hussites threw a whole altar in there, which people claimed to see when the water was low. And whoever touches that altar while bathing will drown. Most people are said to perish in the river on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and the raftsmen of Podskalí once would not even look for such a drowned man, for fear of drowning themselves. It was also said that the body of Saint Longinus floated to Prague of itself down the Vltava all the way from Rome.