Nóż, Kraków

Nóż is an iron knife replica suspended by a chain in the passage through Sukiennice along the building’s shorter axis. Its installation date is unknown; it probably appeared during the medieval period, when Kraków operated under Magdeburg law. As local legend has it, two brothers were raising the towers of Saint Mary’s Church under Duke Bolesław the Chaste.

Envy drove the younger brother to kill the elder with this knife; consumed by remorse, he then ended his own life by leaping from the taller tower. The hanging knife commemorates that tragedy and warns against fraternal violence. The tale also explains the towers’ unequal heights. The present object is a replica: during World War II, Germans took the original as a supposedly ancient Germanic weapon, and tourists repeatedly stole its replacement.