Case file · Folklore / legend
King Popiel eaten by mice
The earliest Polish chronicle, by Gallus Anonymus (about 1113), says the wicked prince Popiel was driven out and devoured by mice; later chroniclers placed his end in a tower on Lake Gopło at Kruszwica.
1113 CE · 52.68, 18.33 · status: legend
The account
Wincenty Kadłubek and later writers expanded the tale: Popiel poisoned his uncles, whose unburied bodies bred the mice that swarmed over him. The brick 'Mouse Tower' at Kruszwica is actually a 14th-century castle tower, built long after the legend's setting, before the Piast dynasty took power.
The sceptical view
Popiel is not otherwise attested; the story parallels the German legend of Bishop Hatto in the Mouse Tower at Bingen.