The Macocha Legend:
Once upon a time there lived a widower with his small son Janicek in the nearby village of Vilemovice. By remarrying he provided a new mother for Janicek and later a baby boy was born.
Janicek was a healthy boy but his younger brother was constantly ill. Janicek's step-mother hated her step-son and took advice from an old woman, a herbalist. She, perhaps unwisely, told the step-mother that if Janicek died, her son would get well.
"Let's go and pick berries" she said to Janicek the very next morning and off they headed into the woods. "There are some lovely ones by the abyss" she said. "Look, the sun shines brightest right there, by the edge, on the loveliest of berries of all. Just lean out a little. Aren't they gorgeous!" "but I'm frightened. The abyss is so deep." "Don't worry Janicek. I'll hold you my love. And just think how the red, red juice of the bright, young berry will bring health to your poor brother." So out he leaned and as he handed his mother the first berry she took it, crushed it in her fist and threw Janicek into the dreadful abyss before eagerly running back home, her heart full of maternal hope.
Had she been less eager she would have heard little Janicek's cries for help, since he had not fallen to a certain death but had been saved by landing on some branches growing out of the cliff. Some woodsmen working nearby heard him, ran to him, threw a rope down to him and pulled him alive back up the sides of the cliff.
At the very same moment the step mother was opening the door of her cottage, calling out her dear son's name but he heard her not, for he was already stone cold dead, lying pale at the bottom of his cot. Driven half-mad with despair she took the baby in her arms, rushed back to the abyss and with a terrible cry threw herself into that awful chasm onto the rocks far below. So it is that the abyss came to be called Macocha, a suitably corrupted for of "macecha" - step mother.