Long, long time ago in a village not far from the beautiful city of Krakov one carpenter was living mod a modest life with his wife and kids in a house near a big pond. Unfortunately his work wouldn't get sold well because of some other very good carpenters, who had nicer furniture. The man's name was Bolko and his wife was called Wanda. They had a son Antek, who was twelve years old and a daughter Mirka who came to this world just 6 springs ago.

Antek would help his father at work but still it didn't bring much money for living. The family was getting poorer and poorer but neither the man nor his wife would lose their optimism. Every day from morning till night they had a big smile on their faces.

But one morning in their yard a mysterious, homeless traveler appeared walking towards Bolek. He was tumbling. Bolek's good heart told him to help right away. He took him under his arm and brought him to his house without saying a word. He gave him bread, water and the last drop of honey. When the old man got his power back he said to Bolek:

- ‘You are a very good man, I'll recopensate you for everything twice as much. Take this bag’-saying that he gave Bolek a leather sack filled with some strange seeds. He continued- ‘take this seed and plant it by the lake bank. You will not have to water it and in two months a plant will grow there and it will fill your life with goods for 3 generations. Remember my words... the cross is the answer for everything. The old man spent one more night in Bolek's house and then he left to continue his journey. Bolek did what he was told, he planted the seeds by the lake bank.

Every day he was looking out of his window to see if any flower started to grow. Two months later he went to this place with his son and the only thing they saw were two stems. Bolko became upset that the old man fooled him, he took a hook and cut all the stems and when he came home he threw everything. He took a few stems and started to bend and braid it into a cross. After a few hours he saw the results of his work. It was an unfinished but quite a nice basket. His wife found a piece of parchment from the unknown man in the kitchen and the words written on it were saying:

Bolek wasn't too skillful at the beginning but after a while the baskets were becoming pretty nice. So he planted next piece of the wheat so that in two months he was able to gather stems again. He started to braid so many baskets from it that after two harvests the house was too small to keep them. By then he came to the idea of bringing them to Krakov and sell them on the market. He did as he thought. All the courtiers were surprised by the simplicity and beauty of the basket's carrying possibilities and offered him immense sums of money for them. However Bolko refused to get the big sums of money because of his good heart. He only asked for a little, which he spent on food for his family. This is how thanks to the wicker Bolko's family defended themselves from big poverty and began to be respected even among Krakov's society.