And up to this day, the Heynal has been played from the church’s tower. The brave trumpeter had died saving Kraków, but he had not finished playing.įrom that day, it was decreed that the Heynal be played every hour in memory of the trumpeter of Kraków. Yet he had not let go of his trumpet, and in fact his body was ready to blast out one final note.
The watchman was still in the tower, lying dead as a Tartar arrow had pierced his throat. They looked for him until one of his friends found him. While the people of Krakow were celebrating their victory, they realized that they couldn’t see the watchman in the tower anymore. In the end the Tartars retreated and the city was saved. They shot their arrows wave after wave until the invaders suffered great losses, all under the tune of the Heynal. The Polish archers quickly took their positions.
The author simultaneously laughs at the idea that magic exists, for science has clearly disproved its existence, and yet he warns against the evils of magic, in a sense, revealing his own superstitious dread.The churh in Kraków where the trumpeter played.Īt the sound of the Heynal being played over and over the people of Kraków were at first puzzled, maybe even annoyed, but they eventually realized what was going on. These superstitions are enumerated in the storyline and associated with greed, violence, and sin.
The author writes about fifteenth century Poland from the privileged vantage point of the twentieth century, by which time, according to the historical narrator, scientists had figured out the truth of the world and dispensed with the immoral and foolish superstitions of the fifteenth century. While the novel is an enduring, noble tribute to historic Poland, the central theme of the story betrays the scientific hubris of the early twentieth century in which the novel was written. The author tries mightily to separate "good" science from the "evil" of magical exploration in The Trumpeter of Krakow.
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