When Kolberg visited the town of Przemyśl in 1883, 1884, and 1885, he probably travelled by train from Cracow to the newly built Przemyśl station (erected in 1860):
“Przemyśl is one of the most picturesque cities in Galicia. The best view is when one looks at it from the south. The most outstanding point in the landscape is the castle hill (Capia), scattered with the remains of the old castle.
The first settlement here was established a long time ago. The town used to be the capital of the duchy which later was called Red Ruthenia. It is believed to be founded by the Croatian prince Przemysł. Nestor, the chronicler, mentions the large town of Przemyśl, in the account from 981 related to the takeover of the land by Włodzimierz. Since then, the city was the capital of one of the Ruthenian districts until 1340, when Kazimierz the Great took over Red Ruthenia.
The town always struggled with the Tatars. In 1672, the Franciscan monk, Szykowski, saved the city from Turks, Tatars and Cossacks teaching inhabitants how to defend themselves.
The inhabitants of the town, similarly to other settlements of Red Ruthenia, include mostly Poles, but also Ruthenians, Germans and Jews”.
From August 31 to September 11, 1882, the Galician Economic Association organised an agricultural-industrial exhibition containing items of house equipment, tools, and agricultural machines, used at that time. The count, Wojciech Dzieduszycki, was in charge of the part of the exhibition devoted to weaving and basket plaiting.
Kolberg mentions that in his manuscripts:
“The exhibition in Przemyśl included the extensive department of knitting. Moreover, an entrepreneur from Lviv, Markiewicz who possesses his own market, organised in Przemyśl his own exhibition, which mostly displayed Galician weaving. The weaving, as a craft, is spreading really fast in the Carpathian foothills. It stands as a great opportunity for poor people to earn money and get some food”.
Kolberg collected here some descriptions of beliefs and superstitions:
“Local people believe in both demonic creatures and fortune-tellers; the latter ones are witches who are present in every village. Sometimes witches are gypsy wives of Ruthenian men. There are different kinds of witches; some treat sicknesses in people, other cure cattle; some give advices, other tell the future (especially gypsies). A witch or a warlock sometimes tells the patient what is the reason of his or her sickness. It can be the fact that a patient erected his house on the devil’s head, or that he dug out the root of common lilac, or that he started his work at the wrong hour”.
“They even send for a warlock to get rid of the devil which appears under different forms, such as a child, swine etc. The warlock pours some holy water on the devil. Sometimes, when the devil is in the barn, the warlock takes all the cattle out and runs through the barn hitting walls with a whip. Then, others take clubs and brooms and do the same. Next, the warlock pours some holy water on the entrance and orders each hole to be clogged because the devil can come back in a form of a small insect”.
