The legend of Cieszyn’s founding on the river Olza by Leszek, Cieszek and Bolek, the three sons of the Polish King Leszek III, is one of the mainstays of this town’s identity, and the so-called Three Brothers’ Well is its most noticeable element. It is by this well that visiting tourists are told of the great joy felt by the three brothers on being reunited after a long separation. Such was their delight (in Polish ‘cieszyć się’) that they decided to found a town to commemorate it. As this took place 1200 years ago, tourists are reminded that Cieszyn is a town with a very long tradition.
      The Three Brothers’ Well, constructed over a spring on a slope running down to the Olza, is indeed very old, though not as old as legend would have it. The oldest preserved written source mentioning the well is a document from 1434, in which the Duchess of Cieszyn, Ofka, and her son, Wacław, grant permission for Mr. and Mrs. Jan and Dorota Pogan to use the meat benches (in other words the butcher’s shop) near the Brotherhood Well. Brotherhood, and not Brothers’, since the well in question belonged to a Dominican monastery which had been founded in Cieszyn in the late 13th century. The well stood in the grounds of the Dominicans’ garden, which was originally large, stretching as far as the slope leading to the Olza’s banks. At the beginning of the 16th century, the Dominicans divided up part of their lands, from which a new district was to emerge – the so-called New Town. In 1516, for example, the Dominicans sold a plot of the monastery’s gardens near the Brotherhood Well to Stefan Tkacz. Two years earlier, the butcher, Jakub Flassecher, had sold half of his house by the Brotherhood Well [beym Braderborn] to another butcher called Mathias, and in the contract reserved the right of free access to the well, which shows how important a role the drawing of drinking water played in the lives of Cieszyn’s burghers.
      In the middle of the 16th century, the Duke of Cieszyn, Wacław III Adam, accepted the reformation, and abolished the Catholic Church’s property, including the estate of the Dominican order. Most of its property in Cieszyn was handed over to the town’s authorities, and Cieszyn thus became the owner of the Brotherhood Well, even after another Duke returned to the Catholic Church in 1609 and gave the Dominican monastery most of its property back. The magistrate was responsible for maintaining the well, and thus in the accounts of the Mayor of Cieszyn for 1650 we find the information that over 13 zloties had been spent on it, paid to a mason and carpenters for their work, and to workmen for bricks. In that century, the well is mentioned many times in our sources, e.g. in 1610 Bartosz Skoczowski owned a house “on Brotherhood Street opposite the well which is called Brotherhood”.
      Throughout the centuries to come, the well faithfully served the people of Cieszyn by supplying them with drinking water as was intended. We can also find it on the old town plans of Cieszyn from the early 19th century, preserved in Cieszyn Museum. A stream of water is indicated on both of these, where the excess spring water flowed into the Olza. The Brotherhood Well did not, however, differ in any significant way from the other sources of drinking water within the town, and it certainly never occurred to anyone to link it to the town’s founding. It is not mentioned in any of the legends which supposedly explain Cieszyn’s founding, which up until the early 19th century concentrated on the year 810, as found in old Silesian chronicles. This can be clearly seen during the town’s 1000th anniversary celebrations held in 1810. Not a single element of these two days of festivities was related in any way to the Three Brothers’ Well. It was this jubilee that inspired an increasing interest in the origins of Cieszyn, however, and this in turn led to a new explanation being composed - a brand-new ancient legend, supposedly passed down through the ages by the locals, shedding light on the founding of this town on the Olza.
      The origins of the legend of the Three Brothers, founders of Cieszyn, are inextricably linked to the Mayor and chronicler of Cieszyn, Alojzy Kaufmann, who was also the first to tell it publicly. And the first person he told it to was none other than Emperor Franz I, during his visit to Cieszyn in 1817. This visit lasted two days, the first of which the ruler spent on audiences and interviews with local dignitaries and civil servants, and on the second (30th June 1817, to be exact) he found the time to visit the town and its institutions. He began at the Provincial Parliament building, then headed towards the recently built municipal brewery on Śrutarska Street, which in those days was the epitome of modernity, equipped as it was with a steam engine. Mayor Kaufmann acted as his guide, and by the Brotherhood Well at the side of the road he told him the fairy tale origin of Cieszyn. Unfortunately, the well was rather dilapidated at that time; Kaufmann himself said it was more reminiscent of a small puddle. The Emperor duly remarked that “you hold it in little regard for such a distinguished well”. The ruler’s opinion could not, of course, pass unheeded. In 1825, despite not being in the healthiest financial situation, Cieszyn’s local authorities had this “ancient monument to Cieszyn’s origins” rebuilt, and its surroundings tidied up.
      We do not know exactly what the Mayor of Cieszyn said to the Austrian Emperor, but in his works on the history of Cieszyn Kaufmann made frequent reference to the legendary founding of the town. He always quoted “a folk tale” saying that the sons of the Polish King Leszek III had been hunting in the dark forest which grew where Cieszyn now stands, and on one spot (on the slope where the town is now) discovered a spring of crystal clear water, from where there was a most pleasant view over the Olza valley. The need for shelter for a longer time, and the abundance of game in the forest caused Cieszko, one of the brothers, to build a little hunting lodge on the site, and then a castle with a temple on the hill opposite. He also brought in settlers, so that on the former hunting ground a town was formed, named Cieszyn from the words “cieszę się”, “I’m pleased”. The spring became a well, which supplied the town with the best drinking water, and this later came to be known as the Three Brothers’ Well in memory of the three royal sons.
      The legend of the Three Brothers’ Well became the official one a decade and a half later, when it appeared in print. This happened thanks to Paul Lamatsch von Warnemunde, a home-grown poet and clerk of the Cieszyn magistrate’s office, and thus a close collaborator of Kaufmann. In his two-volume collection of verses and dramas, published in Brno in 1840 under the title “Erzählungen, Sagen und Gedichte“, Lamatsch included a long poem entitled "Die Gründung von Teschen” (“The Founding of Cieszyn”).
      After that, the legend began to live a life of its own, as did the Brotherhood Well, or, as it was now known, the Three Brothers’ Well. The well prospered from its unexpected fame, as now it had to be tended and cared for by the local authorities who were constantly short of money, but had to bow to public opinion. After 1848, the Three Brothers’ Well was the subject of particular interest from the side of the then-forming Polish national camp, since the legend of the Polish king’s three sons was a reminder of Cieszyn’s Polish roots. As early as 1852, "Gwiazdka Cieszyńska" (“the Cieszyn Star”) reprinted a Polish translation of the part of Kaufmann’s chronicles which mentioned the well and quoted the legend. In 1860 it was the Polish nationalist circles linked to “the Star” which reminded the authorities of the legendary anniversary of Cieszyn’s founding and began to agitate for the well’s renovation. The attitude of the editors was expressed in the popular dialogue “Jura and Jonek” in the issue of 23rd June, in which it was stated that Cieszyn was now 1050 years old, and that nobody in the town was giving this a thought. The tale, of course, was told of the three princes Bolek, Leszek and Cieszek, sent to the three corners of the world and returning after their long journeys to meet “by that fine spring, which to this day we call the brotherhood well”. Mention was made of the celebrations fifty years before and deep regret was expressed that this noble reminder of the past, in which “had always been the best water in the whole of the town,” and which “was surrounded by beautiful grating, like a shrine” was now in a tragic state of repair. The dialogue finished with a call to gather donations for the rebuilding of the well. Soon the donations began to flow in, even from Poland. Wojciech Przybyłowski of Stanisławów was the first to send 4 złoties, and the donors emphasised the importance of this Piast-era monument, a symbol of the Slavic bond between “Silesians and Poles, once close-knit nations”.
      The action begun by the Cieszyn Star finally mobilised the local authorities, who, in August, set to work organising the anniversary celebrations. A special committee was appointed, whose members included the notary from Frysztat, Dr. Andrzej Cinciała, and the principal of Cieszyn’s high school, Dr. Józef Fischer. In September, the Committee accepted the proposals for the programme of festivities, which was made public on 19th September 1860 in a specially printed appeal entitled “A summons. 1050 years have passed since the founding of our town of Cieszyn!” The celebrations themselves took place on October 7th, but on the previous evening there was a presentation of co-called “living pictures”, a theatrical dramatisation based on Paul Lamatsch’s poem about the founding of Cieszyn. The participants then made for the brotherhood well, where various songs were sung to the accompaniment of a band. It is worth adding that one of the earlier versions of the programme envisaged 12 festively attired young ladies at the well, drawing water and offering it to the assembled guests. The legend of Cieszyn’s founding and the well itself clearly played a major part in the whole celebration. The editors of the Star were entitled to feel satisfied, but through Jura and Jonek expressed their regret that the authorities had done their best to make the Polish language as inaudible as possible during the celebrations.
      Most importantly, the committee also undertook to print a souvenir publication with a historical and statistical content, the profits from whose sale were to be allocated to the “total reconstruction of the brotherhood well, that dear and amusing reminder of our ancestors.” In the same year, the Committee bore out these promises by publishing Karol Prochaska’s bilingual German-Polish brochure dedicated to the anniversary, entitled "Pamiętnik z powodu 1050letniej uroczystości założenia miasta Cieszyna" in Polish, and "Album aus Anlaß der 1050-jährigen Feier der Gründung der Stadt Teschen" in German. It was based around Paul Lamatsch von Warnemunde’s poem "Die Gründung von Teschen", a Polish translation of which was also included, or rather a very loose rewrite of it. The second half of the publication was taken up with texts connected with Cieszyn’s history, including the “Chronicle of the Town of Cieszyn arranged chronologically according to Mr. Kaufmann’s Memoirs”. This began with the 1810 description of the founding of Cieszyn by Bolek, Leszek and Cieszek. The money made from the sale of the brochure, and from voluntary donations was not, however, sufficient (around 150 zł), so another committee was set up which published a plea on the pages of the Cieszyn Star for donations to be submitted for the well’s restoration.
      This finally took place several years later. In April 1868, a solid foundation of dressed stone was built for the well, and the following month a metal housing was attached in the form of a hexagonal bower made at the steelworks at Trzyniec. Three commemorative plaques were placed on three of the external walls, with inscriptions in Polish, Latin and German. This read: “The probable founding of the Town of Cieszyn in 810 by the three sons Bolek, Leszek and Cieszek. After a long wander, they met by this spring and in their joy built a town in commemoration, which was named Cieszyn.”
      The old well of the Dominican Brotherhood thus became once and for all the Three Brothers’ well. Since then it has been frequently immortalised by both serious and local painters, then photographers, and it has been exploited to propagate the image of Cieszyn and its history, its picture has found its way into various newspapers and onto the postcards which have been produced in ever larger numbers in Cieszyn since the end of the 19th century. Eduard Feitzinger was probably the most meritous in this field - he published a postcard with a view of the Three Brothers’ Well in 1898. The well became an almost compulsory site for visiting in the town. This was particularly true for visitors from Poland who, along with local Polish activists, found confirmation here of Cieszyn’s Polish roots, especially when the town’s German rulers removed the Polish street signs. For this same reason, Cieszyn’s local authorities led by mayors from the Demlu clan ever more rarely made mention of the legend about the town’s founding by the three brother princes, and the 1100th anniversary was celebrated much more modestly than the previous ones. In fact, it was only really the Poles who celebrated it. The artist Jan Raszka, the locally born professor at the School of Industry in Krakow, designed a commemorative medal depicting the moment when the three brothers met, and the editors of "Zaranie Śląskie", the first Polish ethnographic/literary publication to have scientific ambitions, published a five-act operetta by Józef Lebiedzik entitled "Cieszymir" to celebrate the anniversary, calling simultaneously on composers to write some simple music for the libretto so that it could be acted out in folk theatres.
      Cieszyn’s local authorities also started making less of an effort to provide the Three Brothers’ Well with the care it once had. By the end of the 19th century we hear complaints about the poor state and progress of the restoration. Even the German “Silesia”, essentially the press organ of the town’s liberal German rulers, wrote about it in 1890, pointing out that an ever increasing number of tourists were looking for something worth seeing. After the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Poles taking control of Cieszyn, the legend of the town’s founding by Leszek III’s three sons became almost mandatory, even finding its way into the regional history books used in schools. For a long time, however, there was not enough money to maintain the well, and so at the council meeting of Oct. 10th 1932, Councillor Szuścik brought up the matter of its poor state. In response, the mayor announced that he was even then formulating a plan to beautify the vicinity of the well. A motion was passed to varnish the well and renew the inscriptions on its plaques. Although the German version irritated Polish nationalists, most of the townspeople had nothing against it. After the Second World War, though, the idea of retaining a German inscription on the flagship monument of this “eternally” Polish town was unthinkable. It was removed, and in 1951 it was replaced by a relief cast in Cieszyn’s “Celma” – an enlargement of Jan Roszka’s medal from 1910.
      This is the form in which we can still see the Three Brothers’ Well today. And today locals and tourists alike are reminded that Cieszyn is a town with a very long and very complicated past.