Today’s excerpt from Prague Unbound offers a glance at the city’s most famous clock…

Legends abound regarding the celebrated Pražský orloj. Tales of conspiracy and mayhem and eye-gouging. Pay them no more mind than you would a drunken Turk. To wit – the clock wasn’t actually constructed by Master Jan Hanuš. Hanuš was not attacked and blinded at the behest of Prague Councillors, and he did not later disable the clock for his revenge.

If you’re expecting us to give you the real story about why this lovely horloge stopped working for one hundred years, you’re going to be disappointed. We can’t share all our secrets now, can we?

But we can tell you that as the third oldest operating astronomical clock in the world, it has seen its share of suffering over the years. We can tell you how after being built in the early 1400s it still didn’t work properly until repairs in 1610, and how it again fell into such a state of disrepair that in 1780 officials considered tearing it down altogether. During the Prague Uprising that occurred in the final week of WWII, the clock came under heavy artillery fire and the Nazis burned down much of the Old Town Hall that houses it.

It’s said that the fate of the Czech people is tied to that of the clock, and should the orloj again fall into disrepair, a great darkness will descend upon the land.

Tick…tock.

Note: If you’re in Old Town Square and wonder what time it is, don’t bother consulting the clock. Despite those many discs and dials, the one thing it actually doesn’t display is the time. 

(Photo via Krzysiu “Jarzyna” Szymański, Wikimedia Creative Commons)