While visiting charming corners of Ziemia Cieszyńska (Cieszyn Land) in the early spring you can find, among the blossoming nature, a modest but beautiful little green flower...This is cieszynianka wiosenna. Within the Cieszyn area two nature reserves have been established. These are: Lasek Miejski on the Olza and Lasek Miejski on the Puńcówka. In both of these places that floral curiosity of Ziemia Cieszyńska has been preserved. To all the inhabitants of Cieszyn and its surroundings that little plant has probably been a graceful symbol of this land for a long time. Perhaps not everyone was or is able to remember the Latin name for cieszynianka wiosenna - Hacquetia epipactis. Only a few would also be able to say how that little flower found its place here. But a folk legend that tells an extraordinary story about the coming of that pale green flower to our area, once heard, easily gets sunk in our memory. Listen to the old legend then. 
      When Swedish Forces invaded our country a few centuries ago, they reached as far as Ziemia Cieszyńska. The turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War did not spare the town on the Olza, either. The army ‘made themselves comfortable’ in the castle of the Cieszyn Piast family. Within its walls they set their defences, the subsequent fighting eventually bringing this voluminous and fortified structure into ruin. The devastation in Cieszyn and the nearby villages was an inglorious ‘token of remembrance’ left by the enemy for a long time after the military struggle ended. It rendered the process of renewal, of ‘rising from the ashes’ more difficult.
      One day during the war a small Swedish squad, gravely weakened by a battle fought somewhere in the vicinity of the town, was manoeuvring near Cieszyn. It moved quite slowly because a lot of soldiers had been injured during the bloody battle. In the very rear a young Swedish soldier, badly wounded, was dragging his feet. Both the scorching heat and the burning wound on his forehead made him weaker and weaker. He felt he was losing his strength with every step he made. Every now and then he pressed a small silk bag to his chest. He had got it from his mother before he went to the war. When holding the little bag in his injured, aching hands, he felt a lump of Swedish soil. The memory of his far distant Homeland comforted him and helped him to stop thinking about the pain. However, his exhaustion overcame him. He lost consciousness and slumped to the ground. His tired companions were slowly moving away; they had not noticed his fall...
      Not far from the road along which the Swedish squad was moving there was a small farm inhabited by a poor family, the Zabystrzans. Their daughter, Hanka, was just going out to the fields when she noticed something in the distance, lying on the road. Puzzled by what she saw and, not being able to make out a human form from the dark shape lying so far away, she hurried towards the place. It was only after she went up quite close that she realised it was an enemy soldier. She leant over the wounded man and wiped some blood from his temples. She could tell the soldier was still alive by his weak breathing.
      In order not to lose time she rushed to her father. By joining hands they carried the man to the cottage. She dressed his wounds and gave him some tea with honey that her mother made for him. The vinegar she used to rub his temples brought him back to his senses. At first the Swedish soldier felt frightened and became alert: he was in an unfamiliar room and was surrounded by strangers. But he saw whole-hearted smiles on the Zabystrzan family’s kind faces so he somewhat composed himself and he sank into a deep sleep. The family decided to help the Swede and they did it as well as they could. They looked after the man but he got weaker day by day.
      He slept (with an unconscious dream) for three days and three nights. But when he woke up he was so weakened that he could not leave his bed. The wound would not heal. In the Zabystrzans’ house one could feel death coming. Hanka sat at his bedside all the time and she changed his dressings. She cheered him up with words he could not understand but which brought relief anyway. The young man responded with a smile. Although they did not understand each other, they spent a lot of memorable moments together. He told her about his beloved Sweden, about how much he missed his mother and that he would never see his home again. The girl did not need to understand his words to be able to feel his sorrow. 
      The Zabystrzans could not help the badly wounded man. After a week the soldier died. Before he died he asked Hanka to scatter the grey soil from the little bag he wore on his chest over his grave. The girl did it straight after the funeral. Weeks passed, then months... Grief-stricken Hanka looked after the young Swede’s grave regularly. 
      She mourned him whole-heartedly. She decorated his grave by planting the most beautiful wild flowers but somehow all of them, for reasons unknown, faded and withered. However, in the early spring, to Hanka’s great surprise, a carpet of some unusual-looking, modest flowers with green petals covered the grave. Hanka had never seen the plant before. The Cieszyn people called the flowers cieszyniankas. 
      Maybe you, too, will find a cieszynianka during your walk in Lasek Miejski on the Puńcówka or on the Olza in the spring. Take a close look. The pale green little flower will remind you of the stories about a longing for a far distant Homeland and the unfulfilled love between two young people who, in spite of everything, could understand each other without words.