Curtea de Argeş (Romania)
The masters began their work but everything they built in the daytime was destroyed at night. This continued for four days. Manole ceased to work, lay down and saw a dream. When he woke up he said he had heard a voice from heaven. That voice said to build a monastery they had to wall the wife or a sister of one of the masters into the wall – the one who would come first in the morning bringing them food.
At the dawn Manole climbed the scaffold and saw his young wife Anna walk on the field bringing them food and wine. He fell down on his knees and besought God to rain on the earth so that his wife would go back home. God heard his prayer; it started to rain; but the wife kept on walking. Manole asked God to send wind to the earth. The wind blew, so strong it overturned mountains; but it could not stop Anna, and she came over to Manole.
The masters rejoiced as they saw her. They said they wanted to falsely wall Anna in as a joke and told her not to fear. Manole began erecting a wall before her. Anna got scared and said the wall pressed her body very much. Manole continued to work and walled in Anna completely. Only a voice was heard from behind the wall saying, “Manole, Manole, the wall is pressing on me very much; I am dying!”
Negru Wode arrived in the new monastery unrivaled on the earth and asked the masters if they could build for him a monastery even better. The masters sitting on the scaffold above the roof said they were the best builders in the world and could build for Negru Wode even a more beautiful monastery. Then he ordered to cut off the scaffolds, and the masters remained on the roof. The masters decided to make themselves wooden wings of thin planks. They jumped from the roof but fell down and crushed. But when Manole jumped he heard a voice out of the wall saying, “The wall is pressing against me too hard; it is breaking my breast in; it is crushing my baby; life is leaking out of me!” He fell dead, and on the site of his fall a spring sprang up streaming a tiny thread of water salty with his tears.
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