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 "I have seen many great wonders over there because everything there is peculiar. They are shaggy, and hardly any warlord combs his hair; they live on baked turnips, which they prefer to any other food because supposedly bravery comes from eating them. They live in dwellings with their cattle and snakes; they eat and drink excessively. They don't respect married women but greatly respect unmarried ones to whom they attribute a great power. They say that if a girl rubs a man with dried herbs, it will stop colic."

"It may be worth to have colic if the women are beautiful!" exclaimed Eyertreter.

"Ask Zbyszko about it," said Macko.

Zbyszko laughed at that so heartily that the bench began to shake beneath him.

"There are some beautiful ones," he said. "Wasn't Ryngalla beautiful?"

"Quickly! Who is Ryngalla?"

"What? You haven't heard about Ryngalla?" asked Macko.

"We have not heard a word."

"But she was Duke Witold's sister, and the wife of Henryk, Duke of Masovia."

"You don't say! Which Duke Henryk? The only a Duke of Masovia by that name was a bishop of Plock, and he died."

"That's the same one. He expected a dispensation from Rome, but death gave him his dispensation because evidently, he did not please God with his actions.

I was sent with a letter to Duke Witold when the king also sent Duke Henryk, Bishop of Plock. By that time, Witold was tired of the war, probably because he could not capture Vilnius, and our king was tired of his own brothers and their vices. The king had noticed that Witold was shrewder and smarter than his brothers, sent the bishop to him to persuade him to leave the Knights and return to his allegiance, for which he promised to make him ruler over Lithuania. Witold, always fond of changes, listened with pleasure to the emissary. There were also a feast and tournaments. Although the other bishops did not approve of it, the emissary joined the lists and showed his knightly strength. All the dukes of Masovia are powerful. It is well known that even the girls of that blood can easily break horseshoes.

In the beginning, the duke threw three knights from their saddles. The second time he threw five of them. He threw me from my saddle, and at the beginning of the encounter, Zbyszko's horse reared, and he was thrown.

The duke took all the prizes from the hands of the beautiful Ryngalla, before whom he kneeled in full armor. They fell so much in love with each other that during the feasts, the clerics had to pull him away from her by his sleeves. And her brother, Duke Witold, had to restrain her. The bishop said: 'I will give myself a dispensation, and the pope, if not the one in Rome, then the one in Avignon, will confirm it, but I must marry her immediately. Otherwise, I will burn up!' It was a great offense against God, but Witold did not dare to oppose him because he did not want to displease the emissary, and so there was a wedding. Then they went to Suraz, and afterward to Sluck, to the great sorrow of Zbyszko, who, according to the German Knightly custom, had selected the Duchess Ryngalla to be the lady of his heart and had promised her eternal fidelity."