In the seaside town, Gdansk, there are may things to do as a tourist. You can walk around the medieval city center, have fish and beer and observe the large ships and small boats sail by as they mingle among the gigantic mermaid like creatures, called Topliece. In most cases they are harmless, but sometimes their curiosity and strength will get the best of them and cause havoc for the sailors.
“This is my pond,” says the Vodyanoy, as he swats away the usual Mazurian swarm of mosquitoes. Every year they come here with their long boats, bags and bags of God knows what, and disturb my peace! They yell at me, shoo me away as if I were some mosquito!” He pauses to take a long pull from his pipe and puffs out a thick swirl of smoke while looking out into the distant lakes over Mazuria. Despite being longtime resident of Mazuria, the Vodyanoy doesn’t embrace the tourists that flock every summer to it’s 2000 lakes.
Mazuria is a national park in Poland, known for its large amount of lakes ample for sailing and other eco-tourist activities. In return of his appreciation of the tourists, he will observe them closely with his beady eyes from the tall stalks of myrtle grass.
Mazovia is located in the center of Poland. The province’s landscape is sprinkled with apple orchards and small farms. In the summers, the air stands still and the temperatures become unbearably hot. Poludnica likes to appear during midday when Mazovians are out tending to their crops as quickly as they can, so that they can go inside to rest. She pesters them till exhaustion with unnecessary questions- “Where does milk come from?” and “How many apples will you harvest this year?”. She stops until one or more people faint from her exhausting taunts and if no one gives into her ways, she will cause the air to go unbearably humid and the sun to rise up even higher in the sky for the entire summer.
