Alligator: You probably wont find many people with that name not only in your counry, but also in every slavic one.
Well actually, there are many Valeska/Waleska names. It is a German name and it means strong, beautiful, powerful. Here is how:
Waleska (Walaska, Valeska, Valasek or Valiska) is the legendary founderess of the city of K³odzko (Latin Glacium, Glacensis urbs, Glocium, German Glatz, Czech Kladsko), who reigned on Castle Hill in pagan times.
The oldest document mentioning Waleska dates from 1625 - the K³odzko's chronicler Georgius Aelurius devoted an entire chapter to her in his work Glaciographia. Some legends say that she was the daughter of Krak and sister of Princess Wanda.
But all the legends agree that she was beautiful, statuesque and strong. She had a long, golden hair braided in pigtails, she excelled in hunting and she shoot with a bow and arrows. She could break a horseshoe with bare hands.
The linguists derive her name from "gold haired" - "zlatovláska" in Czech, later transformed to the German "Walaska" or "Waleska". During this transformation the "golden" part has been lost and the "haired" was left. In Polish that would be "w³oska, w³osiana".
Legends:
One story says that she drew her superhuman strength from her wonderful braid. Thanks to it she defeated the dragon hiding in a pit under a linden tree in ¯ela¼ne, shooting him with arrows from a distance of several kilometers. The country, which she ruled, was famous for its wealth, and it was envied by the neighbours. Jealous Christian Czechs wanted to grab her land. They treacherously seized her and cut off her enchanted braid. She ended her life immured alive in a church which was called after that a pagan temple.
Another story says that there was a pagan virgin Waleska, which entered into collusion with the devil. Thanks to this she was cruel and evil, yet beautiful and brave. No knight could match her in battle. Her strength was enchanted in the beautiful, long hair. She was merciless to her subjects, and her dealings with the devil brought the misery to the countryside. The subjects revolted. One night, when Waleska was asleep, they cut off her hair. As a result, she has become vulnerable. She was imprisoned and then walled up in the wall of the castle. Her golden hair and the miraculous bow have been deposited in the temple on Castle Hill. It turned out that it was only she who could wield the bow. It was useless in the hands of others.
Her braid was reportedly stored, until the eighteenth century, in the so-called Green Room of the castle, as a talisman to protect K³odzko city. It was taken away by Frederick the Great, who took K³odzko and joined all the K³odzko lands to Prussia. He also took away the legendary drum covered by the skin of Jan ®i¾ka - the leader of the Hussites.
There is a stone bas-relief of a feminine bust on the wall surrounding the fortress of K³odzko. Tradition assigns it to the image of Waleska. The face of the sculpture was destroyed after 1945 by Polish settlers from the east in the act of vandalic revenge. Her appearance is now known only from the pre-war photographs.
Translated from Polish Wikipedia: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waleska
See also:
610 Valeska (1906 VK) - a planetoid from the main belt of asteroids, orbiting the Sun within 5 years and 150 days at an average distance of 3.08 a.u. It was discovered on September 26, 1906 in Heidelberg by Max Wolf. The name comes from the Germanic name Valeska and was inspired by the letters VK in the initial marking of the asteroid: 1906 VK.
And there is of course Madam Walewska, as any kid in Poland knows it. :-)
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