Krakow is also made central to the story, as Kelly lovingly details its various buildings and streets.

This is a fine historical adventure, written in a clear but highly literate style, full of drama and suspense. The family is shadowed and accosted several times by a mysterious rogue, who turns out to be a dreaded Ukranian warlord who originally drove them from their home and is out to steal a priceless treasure which, to Joseph’s surprise, his father is guarding for the king. In the tower there, he plays on the hour the Heynal, a theme that is traditionally broken off in mid-note out of respect for a brave Polish lad who was killed by an arrow while playing it as Tartars advanced. Joseph becomes a watchman in the Church of Our Lady Mary. The family befriends a wise scholar and goes to live in the house of an alchemist and his daughter. Joseph Charnetski, a fifteen-year-old, travels with his family to Krakow after their home and fields in the Ukraine were destroyed. You can still go today and hear this awesome tune in Kraków during one of your free weekends of our service programs in Poland.The 1929 Newbery winner, this novel is set in Poland, 1461. 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 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.

The trumpeter of krakow