1. LEGEND OF NICHOLAS
Once upon a time there was a playful boy, Nicholas, who lived
on the shore of the Polish sea. He liked to do mischief to amber
fishermen and miners, and even nymphs in Neptune’s wife retinue,
Salacja, the goddess of salt water. No one was angry at him for these
jokes for a long time. The boy decided to play a trick on Neptune’s
wife when she arrived with the nymphs on the beach to sunbathe.
Nicholas waited in hiding until the entire retinue moved away from
the shore and then he jumped out quickly and hid all the nymphs’
clothes and golden robes of the goddess in the nearby bushes. When
the bath ended the nymphs sought their covers fairly long. Salacja
was furious. She called Neptune to punish Mischief exemplarily. This
time, Neptune didn’t forgive him. As a punishment he turned
Nicholas into a beautiful plant, which people will tear, and thus hurt
him in a terrible way for centuries, because each part of the plant is
a part of the body of Nicholas. This spell will only stop working when
no one on the whole coast throughout the whole summer breaks
even the smallest part of the plant.