Magdalena Szalbot       

If, during your evening stroll along the Olza river you see an animal near the water that behaves in a strange way or a figure that looks peculiar and puffs a pipe – it means you are lucky, but watch out! You have met a drowner (utopiec) in person.
      Older inhabitants of Cieszyn Silesia say that in the past these strange water creatures lived in the local rivers, ponds and streams. Some claim that drowners are ghosts who have always ruled over the water lands. Others say that those who got drowned or chose to commit suicide in the water later became drowners. In the old days everybody knew that even the most benign drowners could get angry if one approached the streams at midnight, bathed in rivers before Saint John’s Day (June 24), or did any chores over the ponds at noon (when the Angelus bell rang). Otherwise they used to confine themselves to playing unpleasant tricks on people. However, drawing people and domestic animals into the depths of the water was simply attributed to their nature. Some of them drowned people in order to break their penance, others, who were exceptionally malicious, did it out of envy, for they knew they could not be redeemed. The latter group drew (to the water) simply everything that moved on the bank. They kept the souls of the unfortunate drowned people in flower-pots, turned upside down and put in a row in a secret room in their under-water abode.
      The beautiful countryside, through which the Olza rolled its crystal clean waters, full of fish and crayfish, as well as the brooks that flowed into it was simply an ideal place for the drowners. They say that as far back as before World War I the world-wide family of drowners was exceptionally numerous in the Cieszyn Lands. Drowners lived in the neighbourhood of the inhabitants of almost all the local towns and villages. 
      Old drowners assumed the shape of human beings most willingly. It was the shape of a little short man, dripping with water, with an ugly face and green staring eyes set in a disproportionately big head. His arms were long, his hands were cold. He was dressed in a green doublet, red short trousers and a red cap. A female drowner (utopcula - a drowner’s wife) was rarely seen. Being none too pretty, she usually appeared in the shape of a toad. On the other hand, the drowners’ daughters were of exceptional beauty. Before midnight they appeared at country dances, dressed splendidly, and, having seduced gullible servants, they drowned them afterwards. In order to lure their incautious victims to the water, the cunning drowners sometimes changed themselves into helpless children that played alone on a river bank, or into smartly dressed men who, in the evenings, encouraged young girls to take a communal bath (in the river) at the end of a hot day. However, what was most dangerous for people was their ability to change themselves into different animals: huge pike and crayfish that gave themselves up to be caught, pigeons fluttering in the rushes, drakes, otters that gambolled confidently on the banks of streams, hares, squirrels, piglets, and even horses. And then they all turned into their sub-human form, choking with their screechy laughter and clapping their hands – just before they dragged beneath the water the victim that had been lured to the shallows. After Saint John’s day the drowners lost their evil power, but they still went on haunting with great pleasure. One farmer, who was considered a courageous man in his village, told with terror the following story. One night, when he was going back to his cottage, tipsy, he met a headless giant who chased him. Another one warned his countrymen earnestly never to venture into the dense scrub near the river from which the corpse of a drowned man had recently been fished out. He himself only just saved his neck. Till dawn he had been looking for his way home and he kept coming across red dwarfs dancing over the surface of the water.
      To the majority of people Bernard from Stonawka, Rajzokitka from Zebrzydowice and Wajda from Sucha Górna were known from tales and only a few knew them in person. Bernard from Stonawka gave up his career and, instead of drowning people, he occupied himself with helping his friends, the numerous Klimsza family. Rajzokitka was joyful but timid. Wajda was an old drowner who was on friendly terms with rustics who grazed horses by Szczyrkula pond. They also heard or knew about a drowner from Kończyce Małe; one could sometimes see him sitting at the Piotrówka, puffing his pipe. The merchants who visited Skoczów on fair days, when crossing the bridge over the Vistula, remembered to pay the toll of 1 kreutzer to the local drowner. In Brenna everybody knew that the hoary old drowner from the Brennica, a gourmet of the beer served in the village inn, was the village officer’s and the farmers’ mate. 
      Old people say that the multi-generation families of drowners had also inhabited the vicinities of Strumień, Pogórze, Zabłocie, Nawsie, Łomna, and Karwina from time immemorial. It happened that the same fellow was seen in different locations in Cieszyn Silesia. When inhabiting a river, the drowners were at loggerheads with each other over the places at which the river was deep, unruffled, and full of fish. Their underwater dwellings were said to have been arranged with great care and lavishness and they left them unwillingly; most often when driven away by people.
      The majority of drowners preferred the life in the village. But it sometimes happened that some representatives of the species moved to the vicinities of towns of their own free will. A rumour has it that a certain unobtrusive drowner-carrier from Darków was for some time a resident in the Olza on the outskirts of Cieszyn. He left his native place after the death of the old Szewczyk. 

 

Rokitka from Cieszyn

      However, the inhabitants of Cieszyn remembered another neighbour from the Olza much better: the drowner Rokitka. Before he moved to the town on the Olza, he and his family had lived for many years in the Tyrka river, at the foot of Jaworowy. With time, however, the piedmont seat became uncomfortable and Rokitka decided to move. In order to reach the Olza that flowed through Cieszyn, Rokitka paid a farmer, who lived at the foot of Jaworowy, a hundred florins. At midnight the frightened peasant came to the bank of the Tyrka with his rack wagon. Before the drowner started to pack all his belongings, he told the carrier not to dare to look behind. But the farmer was extremely curious about what the drowner would take to Cieszyn with him. He bent double and took a peep. At the sight of the fish, crayfish, and frogs that whirled on the wagon he shuddered but he did not betray himself. At Rokitka’s order he set off in the direction of Cieszyn. The drowner knew, however, that the farmer had not kept his promise. When they were parting, he told him not to tell anybody about what he had seen that night. If he did it again, Rokitka warned him, a misfortune would come upon him. Frightened by the threat, the farmer went back home, determined not to breathe a word, but his wife’s persistent questions loosened his tongue...
      A few months later the farmer decided to go to market in Cieszyn. While crossing the Olza in a shallow place suddenly, with no apparent reason, one of his horses started to drown. And then his old acquaintance from Jaworowy, Rokitka, about whom and whose threat the farmer had long forgotten, turned up in front of him. Rokitka shook his finger vengefully and announced in his low-pitched voice that the farmer had lost his horse because he had not been able to “hold his tongue”...
      “Cieszynians” still referred to that event for a long time afterwards. They knew that it was better not to fall foul of the vindictive Rokitka. Years passed and the Cieszyn drowner didn’t even think of changing his place of living. Having become rooted in the Olza for good, he got attached to beautiful old Cieszyn. He might have even got to like its inhabitants who did their best not to get in their peculiar neighbour’s way. With time the sight of Rokitka, going to town to do some shopping with a basket in his hand, was no longer a surprise to anybody. The people were more curious about the way his honourable wife, Utopcula, and a bunch of the drowner’s children looked. But the old drowner always travelled the narrow Cieszyn streets alone. 
      It was rumoured that Rokitka was extremely jealous of his wife and in bringing up his sons and daughters he kept iron discipline. One Saturday one of Rokitka’s daughters was severely punished because she went to a dance in town without her father’s consent and, what was even worse, she came back “home” well after midnight. Some young rustic, succumbing to the charm of the girl he met at the dance, agreed to see her off “home”. It was only at the Olza river that he realized that the beautiful stranger was a young drowner who sought to deceive and drown him. As he was running away, he heard the splash of the water behind him. The maiden disappeared. When, after a while, he plucked up his courage and went back to the river, he saw red stains on the otherwise calm sheet of the water. He was happy he was alive but he felt sorry for the girl whose father-drowner gave her a thrashing...
      The Olza once abounded with excellent fish. But Rokitka got bored with this monotonous fish diet. He developed into an extremely fussy gourmet of the meat that he bought at the local butchers’. The butchers used to say, among one another, that even Cieszyn townswomen were not as fastidious as he was. One day an irritated butcher “could not bear it” while attending to Rokitka, who was being more than usually over-fussy, and he cut the drowner’s finger with a knife. Rokitka left without a word, leaving blood-stains on the floor. After that incident nobody saw him shopping in the town. But Rokitka did not forget the butcher’s insult. Some time later his corpse was fished out of the Olza...
      The people pitied the old butcher and they could not forgive Rokitka. The grudge grew. The aging drowner became embittered and very troublesome to the inhabitants of Cieszyn. People said that he left the Olza at nights and he prowled in the Bobrówka that flowed through Liburnia Street. He led people astray by night, getting them lost, haunted them, and he managed to imprison those who were exceptionally incautious in his underwater kingdom for ever... The inhabitants of Cieszyn became more and more frightened of Rokitka. In order not to fall foul of the malicious ghost, mothers plaited “tulia” (a herb that was supposed to protect one against evil) in their daughters’ hair - just in case. Prudent people kept a rosary or a prayer-book in their hands when they walked across the bridge over the Bobrówka in the evening because they knew that ‘the blessed’ kept the drowners away. Yet, despite all this, the number of drowned people that were fished out of the Bobrówka increased. In the end, following the priest’s advice, a wayside shrine was erected in Liburnia. This was too much for Rokitka. One night he packed all his belongings and moved to the Olza in Boguszowice.       The Olza still flows as it did before, but is Rokitka still living there? Does he sometimes visit Cieszyn? Check it for yourselves, but be careful..