A long time ago a zink mine was built near a settlement called Bytom. A lot of miners went to work there, both old and young.

They started building a new corridor. Unfortunately, the coalstone was so hard that after a few days all work had to be stopped

Weeks passed. One day a young miner appeared. His name was Karlik and he wanted to try to continue digging.

He went down, to the bottom of the mine and decided to eat a sandwich before getting down to work. As he was eating, a tiny little mouse crept out from under a stone. It approached Karlik, sat on its hind legs and looked at the miner.

Karlik liked the mouse a lot, so he gave it some bread crumbs, but the mouse wanted more and more. So he gave it all his breakfast and promised to bring more the following day.

No sooner had he finished talking than a dwarf appeared in place of the mouse – he was a tiny little man with a long, grey beard. He was wearing miner’s clothes and had a cap on his head.

Suddenly the dwarf spoke, ‘You shared your breakfast with me, so I will help you with your work’.

He turned back into a mouse and started drilling holes in the rock with his sharp teeth. He drilled six holes altogether and told Karlik to put some explosives into them. After a while an explosion happened and a corridor appeared in front of Karlik’s eyes. The corridor’s walls were full of zink!

The mouse promised to help Karlik again, but asked him for half of his earnings. Karlik agreed, so the mouse came daily and helped him work.

On pay day Karlik got a lot of money. He met the dwarf in one of the mine’s corridors. They found a plank, sat on it facing each other and started dividing the money. Karlik put one coin on his pile and one on the dwarf’s. Finally one coin was left. Karlik gave it to the dwarf – after all it was thank to him that he’d earned so much.

The dwarf was very satisfied. He said he had been waiting long for such a good miner who would be honest and not greedy. He decided to reward him. It turned out that in reality the dwarf was a Treasurer – the ghost of the mine. He started taking care of Karlik, which meant that from then on Karlik would become really successful, he would earn a lot and his work would be safe.

In spite of his wealth, Karlik remained a good person. He shared his money with the poor, helped the miners and their families.