Trumpeter Of Krakow

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 10th grade March 2001

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We had to read the book The Trumpeter of Krakow in my history class, and we had to write a report, in the next couple of paragraphs I will write an overview of the story. We also were to write about some topics, the topics that i chose to write about were their superstitions and their trade.

In Krakow, a young man was named the trumpeter of krakow because he was to go to the top of the church tower every hour, day and night, and play the heynal. When Krakow was invaded by the tartars, the young man had to play the heynal every hour because he was sworn to play, he went atop the church tower and played it and at the end of the song he was shot by one of the tartars with a bow and arrow.

There was a man named Pan Andrew Charnetski, (pan meant mr.

or sir in those days). He was holder of the Great Tarnov Crystal, this crystal had been passed down through his family for umpteen generations, he was hiding it in his pumpkin. The reason that they kept the crystal in hiding was because of its powers. It was pretty much like a crystal ball in that it could tell the future. Another thing is that if they showed people that they had it, there would be constant fighting for it, they thought it could even cause wars. Andrew was on his way to Krakow when he was stopped by a strange man that knew that the crystal was in the pumpkin, he was telling Andrew lies about where he was from, what family he was born into, etc. Andrew knew that he was telling lies though, and when the strange man offered Andrew the pumpkins weight in gold in return for the pumpkin, Andrew still said no, this made the strange man very mad and he drew his sword and told Andrew that he will have to fight for it, the man missed with his first swing, and after that, Andrew's son Joseph kicked the mans horse and they took off, leaving the man stranded in the middle of the highway. This was the first attempt to steal the crystal.

When they finally arrived in Krakow, they were approached by a man named Peter the button-face, Peter also knew that the crystal was in the pumpkin, he told everybody that Andrew was a wizard (Krakow killed all of the wizards and witches in the city) and he said that Andrew killed his brother and then turned his head into the pumpkin that he had with him, but the people didn't believe Peter, this was also an attempt to get the crystal.

Another guy that was important was an alchemist named Pan Cruetz, his niece was outside one day and she saw a young man beating his dog, the dog was about to turn and attack Cruetz's niece but Andrew's son Joseph saw it and jumped on the dog, saving the little girl's life. This made the alchemist very happy and he offered Andrew a place to live without knowing that Andrew held the Great Tarzon Crystal.

While they were in Krakow, Andrew needed a job, so he became the next trumpeter, it wasn't a great job, but it was something. He was sworn in and he had to play the heynal every hour.

One night Peter broke into Pan Cruetz's house and tied up Andrew and his wife. He searched high and low for the crystal, when he finally found it, he was about to leave but the alchemist caught him, they faught and the alchemist threw a bomb type thing at Peter that left him in a daze, then the alchemist took the crystal upstairs. Andrew was furious because he still thought that Peter got away with it.

Peter thought that Andrew still had the crystal so one hour when Charnetski was playing the heynal, Peter took him hostage and told him that he would kill him if Andrew didn't give Peter the crystal, but Andrew thought that Peter had it, meanwhile the alchemist was trying to use it to figure out how to turn metal into gold, this was driving him crazy, so when Andrew returned, he gave the crystal back to Andrew.

Andrew decided that he needed to get the crystal into hands that wouldn't get it stolen, so him and his wife traveled to the king, and gave it to the king, and they all lived happily ever after! In the last eight paragraphs, I have written a breif summary of the main events of the story, in the next couple paragraphs I will write about my topics and how they were related to medievil times.

They were very superstitious people, this was true during the medievil times as well, they were superstitious in that they would decide if an accused witch actually was one by tying them to a chair and if the chair floated they were a witch but if the chair didnt float they weren't, that is also what they did in the medievil times.

Trade was very important to Krakow, they had a day that was called marketday, during marketday people came from allover on their wagons and brought all of their goods that they wanted to trade, they traded anything, anything from vegetables to toys and books. This is similar to the silk road in that there are a lot of people trading in one general area, since it is similar to the silk road, it relates to medievil times.

In the last two paragraphs, I have said why they were superstitious and how they traded, all in all I would say that this is a pretty decent book and I might recommend it to a person that is willing to sit down and spend a lot of time on it, because it doesnt seem like it would be interesting if you read it piece by piece, and on that I will end my report.