Where the Fates Bade Them Build the Castle

A castle is said to have stood here before there was one in Prague, that is on Hradčany — a castle that was the seat of the Czech dukes already in times veiled in the dimness of the distant past. Legend names Krok as the first of those dukes. He had lived before at Budeč, and as Hájek relates, he said one day to his people: “My dwelling is not here, for this town will not last long; I must seek another. Tomorrow before sunrise go out, turn towards the south and look along the river for a suitable place! The fates and the gods will bring you to the hill where it is fitting to build.” So they went, until they came to a high and broad hill with a steep rock above the river; they marked the place well, ordered the wood cut down and timber houses built of it. And when they had brought Krok there with his family and asked what the castle should be called, they named it Psáry — after the castle in the Croatian land from which they had come. Přemysl's successor Nezamysl is said to have raised the walls afterwards and, instead of timber houses, to have ordered an enclosure of hard stone so that he might dwell there in comfort; he also built a strong high gate of Petřín stone, which in that age no other in the whole land could match in height or breadth.