Slovakia Legends

Three Twigs of King Svatopluk     The Well of Love     Janosik’s Fist

The Well of Love

In the times when family Zapolsky ruled at the Trencin castle, messengers arrived carrying news about Turkish invasion. Zapolsky army won the battle against Turks. To their great surprise it turned out that the Turkish army was led by a woman called Fatima. She was captured and imprisoned, but Zapolsky’s wife took pity on her and saved her from death. Fatima’s fiancé called Omar wanted to set her free even at the price of his death. To do so, he promised to dig a well in the castle rock to make it invincible. Omar together with his 300 companions would spend three years trying to dig through the castle rock to find precious water. After three years and at the cost of death of almost all his men he succeeded. With words: „Zapolsky, water hast thou, but not the heart,“ he took Fatima back home. The story tells that as they were leaving Fatima‘s veil would trap at the bushes along the castle road and therefore the tavern that arose in this place in 16th century would bear a name „Veil“ later changed Fatima as you can find it now.