Banging Their Heads Together

The town hall has had a clock with effigies of goats since 1551. Every day, as the town-hall clock strikes twelve, the doors of the small tower on top of the façade open to show two metal billygoats. The clockwork goats hit each other with horns twelve times. Legend has it that having completed the clock, Bertel Wolf decided to show his work to city councillors and the Poznań voivod. While preparing an official feast, the cook carelessly burned a piece of meat, so he decided to steal two goats in order to kill and roast them, but these escaped to the town-hall tower. When the visitors spotted the animals hitting each other on the cornice of the town hall, the voivod commissioned an additional mechanism with goats. Town Hall Town Hall, Grand Vestibule Town - hall clock