The Prague Astronomical Clock and the legend of the blinded clockmaker

A clock that was already running in 1410

In 1962 a researcher, Stanislav Macháček, published a document he'd found in a book acquired by the Prague City Archives. It was a copy of a letter from the burgomaster and council of the Old Town, dated 9 October 1410. The original, written in German, has been lost. The copy credits the "astrolabe" to the clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň and sets out what he was paid.

So by the early 15th century the clock already existed, had a maker and had been paid for by the town. Not a hint of punishment.

Some people add a second name, the astronomer Jan Šindel, who supposedly did the calculations. It's a hypothesis, and a fairly weak one: it rests on an undated note in the margin of a printed book from after 1566. He may have helped. He may not.

So who was Hanuš?

Here the story takes an almost comic turn. Around 1570, the clockmaker who looked after the machine, Jan Táborský, tried to find out who had built it. All he could write was that it had been made around 1490 by "a certain Master Hanuš". He couldn't find out any more.

That "certain" went a long way. A 17th-century scholar, Balbín, added, with no grounds at all, that Hanuš had been a professor. And in the early 20th century he was identified with a clockmaker called Jan Růže. Hanuš wasn't made up: he worked on the clock and improved it around 1490. But he came along eighty years too late to be its creator.

How a legend is born: 1863, 1883, 1894

The tale of the blinded maker isn't medieval either. The earliest version our research has found dates from 1863. A folklorist, Josef Virgil Grohmann, recorded that in northern Bohemia people said a blind young man with a reputation as a prophet had built the Prague clock. The magistrate had had him blinded, he'd broken a spring, and the clock still hadn't been mended. No name. And the story wasn't being told in the clock's own city, but a long way from it.

In 1883 the writer Josef Svátek included it in a book of Prague legends. The councillors have the young master, still nameless, blinded "so that he could never make another such work". He tears out a part, stops the clock and makes a prophecy: in the year it runs again, a great war will rage across Bohemia. Svátek adds a telling detail. The same story was told about the clocks in Olomouc and in Strasbourg Cathedral. A travelling legend that changes towers depending on who's telling it.

The name arrives in 1894. Alois Jirásek publishes his version in Old Czech Legends: three hooded men blind Master Hanuš at night. In a note, Jirásek admits there's another version, the one about the blind young man, and takes it for granted that Hanuš built the clock in 1490. So the story people repeat in front of the tower today has a birth date: 1894.

A prophecy that came true afterwards

And the prophecy of war? There's a catch. In 1865 the clock had stopped, and there was talk of taking it down. The council decided on a major repair, and the machine started up again on New Year's night 1866. And 1866 was a year of war. Svátek wrote his account in 1883. It's easy to predict the past.

The real story: a survivor

If you want a good story about this clock, the true one is every bit as good as the legend. After Táborský's death the machine kept breaking down. In 1787, while the Town Hall was being renovated, there was a proposal to dismantle it and sell it off as old iron. It was saved by an astronomer, Antonín Strnad, director of the Clementinum observatory, who talked the town into mending it instead of scrapping it.

There were more scares to come. After the repair of 1866, the Hainz firm of clockmakers added the cockerel, which crowed for the first time on the last night of 1882: it's the youngest member of the cast. Then, in May 1945, during the Prague Uprising, the east wing of the Town Hall burned down. The apostles went up in flames and the machine was badly damaged. It went off to the workshop, and in 1948 Vojtěch Sucharda carved new apostles. Yet roughly three in every four of its parts and cogwheels are still the originals.

When the hour strikes, don't just watch the apostles. Death sounds its bell and gives a nod to the Turk, the figure of lust, who refuses with a turn of his head. Nearby, the miser shakes his money bag and the vain man can't take his eyes off his mirror. A short sermon, bang on time, every hour, for anyone who'd come to market.

And if you've room for one more legend, make it this one. The story goes, from a 17th-century chronicler, that a sparrow was once trapped for a whole hour between Death's jaws.

Fact or legend?

• Fact: the clock was running in 1410, and the town paid the clockmaker Mikuláš of Kadaň for it (we know this from a copy of the letter). Hanuš worked on the clock around 1490. It came close to being scrapped in 1787, ran again in 1866 and survived the fire of 1945.
• Hypothesis: that the astronomer Jan Šindel did the calculations.
• Legend: the blinded clockmaker. First, in 1863, a nameless blind young man; in 1883, the prophecy of war; in 1894, the name Hanuš. Also the sparrow trapped in Death's mouth.

Where to hear it

On Podtour's free route, "The Old Town: from the Powder Tower to the Astronomical Clock", the clock is the final stop, with the story of how it survived. The route is free and complete. The legend of the blinded clockmaker, link by link, is told on the route "Prague Legends: from the Old Town to the Charles Bridge".

Further reading

• Český spolek horologický (orloj.eu), "Hypotéza se nestane faktem odlitím v bronzu", on who built the clock (in Czech): https://www.orloj.eu/cs/hypoteza.htm
• orloj.eu, "Sedm pověstí o orloji", with Josef Svátek's texts from Pražské pověsti a legendy, 1883 (in Czech): https://www.orloj.eu/cs/orloj_povesti.htm
• Alois Jirásek, Staré pověsti české (Old Czech Legends, 1894), "Staroměstský orloj". Wikisource (in Czech): https://cs.wikisource.org/wiki/Star%C3%A9_pov%C4%9Bsti_%C4%8Desk%C3%A9/Starom%C4%9Bstsk%C3%BD_orloj
• Josef Virgil Grohmann, Sagen-Buch von Böhmen und Mähren, vol. 1 (Prague: Calve, 1863), tale "Der blinde Jüngling". Available on Zeno.org (in German).
• Prague City Tourism, "Historie unikátu – Staroměstský orloj" (in Czech): https://prague.eu/cs/staromestsky-orloj/historie-prazskeho-orloje/