When the Swedish armies descended upon Poland in 1655, they laid waste to the kingdom and pillaged whatever they could. Among the spoils stolen from the city of Jaktorów was one of King Sigismund III’s most prized possessions: an ornate drinking horn, longer than a grown man’s arm and as thick as an elephant tusk. Although the artistry was exquisite, the horn’s true value had little to do with the metal wrapped around its circumference. In life, the horn had belonged to the last auroch bull, who died in 1621….
