Everyone knows Zlatá ulička (the Golden Lane) at Prague Castle. The word “ulička” is a diminutive of the word “ulice”, i.e. street. Castle has its “ulička”, while down in the Old Town there is Zlatá ulice (the Golden Street).
And why is this street called Golden? There are two interpretations for this. The first is a romantic legend about the love of a young Jewish girl Hana and a waterman from the nearby Vltava. Hana was a very beautiful but quiet girl. She did not seek the company of other people, but liked to go to the river where she sat near the water-hole. There she was met by a nice young man with pale skin and green hair – a young waterman from the Vltava. The two fell in love and the girl followed him to live at the bottom of the Vltava. Her relatives thought she had drowned…
When Hana became pregnant and the date of childbirth was approaching, she asked her husband to bring her aunt, the midwife. And a little boy with green hair was born. Hana advised her aunt not to take pearls or jewels as a reward from her husband, but to ask him for some coal. That’s how it happened.
Hana`s aunt went home carrying the coal in her apron, and because she was tired, occasionally a small piece of coal fell out on the ground. At home she put the coal by the stove and went to bed. She was awakened by a noise in the street, where there were many people picking up the pieces of gold into which the coal had been turned. And since then the street has been called Golden.
The second, disproportionately more prosaic variant, says that the street is called Golden because goldsmiths lived in it. And we can’t be surprised that the silversmiths had their workshops on the side street, and that’s why it’s called Silver (Stříbrná). Both streets lead to Anenské Square – and gold or silver, both are very romantic, especially in the light of street lights.
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