Šíp s modrým peřím - Tři příběhy z Kublova a Velízu – Selucký Oldřich (2023)

This is – in the best sense of the word – a book for the whole family. It offers young readers, as well as those who are still young at heart, primarily three thrilling adventure stories; their heroes are as different as possible in character and the experiences they undergo. ***** The second layer of the book is its contribution to historical knowledge, which it provides for more demanding readers. As its subtitle indicates, it is locally rooted in the Křivoklát forests. On the Velíz hill and in the village of Kublov at its foot, three stories unfold in three different time periods (the eleventh, fifteenth, and nineteenth centuries), based on historically established facts. ***** In the eleventh century, the Přemyslid prince Jaromír was ambushed by rival Vršovci and rescued by a retinue led by – as chronicler Kosmas recounts – his loyal servant Hovora. ***** The church that Jaromír had built here in gratitude for his rescue – and also the monastery that his successors from the Přemyslid dynasty had constructed – was burned down by the Hussites in the fifteenth century, thus ending four centuries of Benedictine monks' presence in the region. ***** And finally, four centuries later, in the village of Kublov, Josef Leopold Zvonař was born into a poor family during the revolutionary nineteenth century,…