Lech, Czech, and Rus
According to an old legend,
Lech, Czech and
Rus were
eponymous brothers who founded the three
Slavic nations:
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Poland (formerly also known as
Lechia),
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Bohemia (
Čechy – now the major part of the
Czech Republic), and
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Ruthenia (
Rus', whose successor states are now
Russia,
Belarus and
Ukraine) respectively. In one of the legend's variations, the three brothers went hunting together but each of them followed a different prey and eventually they all travelled in different directions.
Rus went to the east,
Czech headed to the west to settle on the
Říp Mountain rising up from the Bohemian hilly countryside, while Lech travelled to the north until he came across a magnificent white eagle guarding her nest. Startled but impressed by this spectacle, he decided to settle there. He named his settlement (
gród)
Gniezno (
Polish adjective from 'gniazdo' "nest") and adopted the
White Eagle as his
coat-of-arms which remains a symbol of Poland to this day.
Other variations of Lech's name include:
Lechus,
Lachus,
Lestus and
Leszek.
Czech, or
Praotec Čech (Forefather Čech) also comes under the
Latin name
Bohemus or
German Böhm.
The earliest mention of Lech, Czech and Rus is found in the
Chronicle of Greater Poland written in
1295 in Gniezno or
Poznań. In Bohemian chronicles, Czech appears on his own; he is first mentioned as Bohemus in
Cosmas's chronicle in early
12th century.
The legend suggests the common ancestry of the
Poles, the
Czechs and the
Ruthenians (or modern-day
Russians,
Ukrainians and
Belarusians) and illustrates the fact that as early as the
13th century, at least three different Slavic peoples were aware of being racially- and linguistically-interrelated, and, indeed, derived from a common root stock.
The legend also attempts to explain the etymology of these people's
ethnonyms:
Lechia (another name for Poland), the
Czech lands (including Bohemia and
Moravia), and
Rus' (Ruthenia). In fact, the term "Lechia" derives from the tribe of
Lędzianie (see:
Poland's name). See also:
Etymology of Rus and derivatives.
Lech, Czech and
Rus are also the names given to three large
oaks in the garden adjacent to the palace in
Rogalin,
Greater Poland. Each of them is more than 500 years old.
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One example (
PDF)
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Another variant 
