This is one of my earliest commissions which has allowed me to bring a new life to an old legend which surrounds a tower in my home town Szamotuły. It was commissioned by the Portal Szamotuły Region.

Here is my re-envisioned version of the story:

Halszka of Ostrog - (fairytale) alternative history (with a happy ending)
After Halszka's tricked marriage to Łukasz III Górka, she and her mother took refuge in a Dominican monastery in Lviv. They did not consider the wedding to be valid and did not intend to obey the king's will and go to Szamotuły to Łukasz. The siege of the monastery began then.
Halszka's mother, Beata, hatched a plan to free her daughter from an unwanted marriage to Łukasz and marry her off to the Lithuanian prince Siemion Olelkowicz-Słucki. He sneaked into the monastery disguised as a beggar and married Halszka. A sorcerer got there with him, who - by casting a spell on them - was to make it easier for the couple to escape from the monastery. However, he warned them that there was a price to pay for using magic. There was no other way out, so Halszka and Siemion agreed. The sorcerer transformed them into white deer. The glow of the full moon was supposed to reverse the spell and they would both return to their normal form. However, fate had a different plan.

After escaping from the monastery, the couple took refuge in a nearby forest and waited for the first full moon. Everything went according to plan. At midnight, Halszka and Siemion became human again and met the sorcerer and Halszka's mother at the agreed place. Together they set off for the prince's palace. When the first rays of the sun appeared, they both took the form of deer again.

The sorcerer tried to reverse the spell, but none of his spells had the power. The couple was to remain in the form of deer forever, because their fate was directed by fate - a magic so old that even the most skillful sorcerer would not be able to thwart its plans.

Halszka and Siemion remained the guardians of freedom, revealing themselves to those who needed their help. The information that Halszka was supposedly forcibly brought to Szamotuły by Łukasz Górka reached the couple. Every year Halszka and Siemion return to Szamotuły to celebrate their freedom and the beginning of their incredible story in spite of the erroneous legend.