Stara Basn

Stara Basn…When the Sun was God. Pretty nifty film. Definitely did not win any major awards nor should it have but still fun to watch for self styled warrior types who swing axes around:) 
Set in pre-christian times in the land that would become Poland…Stara Basn tells a familiar tale of greed and betrayal in an [...]

Zbojnicki Dance

 

The Dances of Podhale (Poland)

Joseph Needham
Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Dec., 1937), pp. 117-119

 

Zbójnicki- Na szkle Malowane

 A Polish dance troupe dancing the Zbojnicki…a bandit dance.
 

Mary Barton: An Historical Tale of Poland 1846

Mary Barton: An Historical Tale of Poland
By Henry Krasinski
Published by A.K. Newman and Co., 1846
 
One of the Colonel’s coachmen, a Carpathian mountaineer proposed to exhibit a performance common in his country. He was a man exceedingly tall and broad-chested, but appeared to possess singular activity. His brown hair, hanging down upon his back was curled at the end ; a kind [...]

Universal Geography: Or A Description of All Parts of the World 1829

Universal Geography: Or A Description of All Parts of the World, on a New Plan, According to the Great Natural Divisions of the Globe; Accompanied with Analytical, Synoptical, and Elementary Tables
By Conrad Malte-Brun
Published by A. Finley., 1829
The lowlanders of past
times let no opportunity escape of harassing the mountaineers, who, irritated
or driven to despair, often invaded [...]

The Encyclopædia of Geography 1837

The Gorales are a fierce, highland race, constantly armed with
the axe, with which they can strike an object at the distance of forty yards; and they
brandish this weapon even at their dances and festivals. Till repressed by the vigorous
measures of the Austrian government, they were accustomed to make most formidable raids
upon the low country adjoining.

A nice description of the Tanec Sokyra

On the High Uplands
Sagas, Songs, Tales and Legends of the Carpathians
by Stanislaw Vincenz

Dance description
pg 43
What did they dance? The depicted their ancestors history and past adventures. They swung their axes at one another, erect and squatting, as though repulsing an enemy; they threw their axes from one to another, as though challenging to a fight. [...]

Museum of Histoical Arms catalog

the catalog reads: No.1489 – India Battle Axe. Blade engraved on both sides. Edge of blade has brass cover to protect the sharpness, Wood shaft with tigerstripe grain. VG. $17.50
circa 1950’s…i think that was the date on the cover before it got torn off and vanished. On pg 190 thrown amidst the Indian arms section [...]

Poland: The Knight Among Nations – Page 815 by Louis E. Van Norman – Poland – 1908

The novelist had just returned from a walk
with his daughter when I presented myself at
his cottage at Zakopane in the Carpathian Mountains.
His naturally olive complexion was
flushed with the exercise, and he flourished a
ciupaga (or hatchet-headed mountain-stick)
gleefully as he stepped buoyantly into the room.

The Century: A Popular Quarterly 1908

He
is a rugged fellow, rather big for a mountaineer,
muscular and alert, and scant of words. His rough, weather-beaten countenance, with two deep, parallel scars across his nose and high cheek-bones, shines with deep-set, wolfish eyes, squinting from under his mushroom-shaped hat, shiny from frequent contact with milk and butter, and commonly surmounted with an eagle’s [...]