Prince Popiel of Gnesen, dying in the second half of the ninth century, was succeeded by Siemowit, the son of the prince's plowman, Piast, according to a twelfth-century Polish legend, thus founding a dynasty that will rule the Polish lands until 1370. (The name Piast will not be applied to the dynasty until the seventeenth century.)

Another legend relates that, when various tribes in what is now Poland decide to unite, they ask a Jew, Abraham Prochownik, to be their king.

He declines in favor of a peasant named Piast, the founder of the Piast dynasty.