Legend Olaf Schlægen 

Olaf Schlægen was born in 1887 into a poor family of shoemaker Josef Schlægen in Jetřichovice. From a young age, his rebellious nature and innate aggression were evident. He got along with his father very little. He did not want to learn the cobbler's trade and often fled to the woods where he could have peace when his father tried. His father soon realised that he could not break young Olaf, and so he apprenticed him to a woodcutter who worked in logging for a special purpose. That purpose was wood of sufficient quality to make musical instruments. His name was Adolf Kottek. He soon recognized in the boy his feeling for the forest. He noticed that he understood the context of the problem of selecting trees to be harvested for the purpose of obtaining wood for making musical instruments, and also his brute strength suited him for his age. For the cutouts from the trunks had to be carried out on their backs so as not to damage them.. as was the case when hauling logs by horse. Also, the trees often grew in ravines and in very exposed places where it would have been impossible anyway. Olaf loved it and soon surpassed his teacher. After his apprenticeship he was to take over Kottko's trade, but it was not enough. He read books. He got them from musical instrument makers in Italy who came for the wood. He read about the world in them, and his favorite was the one about America... he wanted to see the world he read about in books, and instead of taking up the esteemed trade... one day he packed his backpack and went with one of the merchants to Hamburg. What he was doing at the time is unknown. The first references are from America. Where he met his friend Paul Bunyan. They were logging together and had many mythical stories that Olaf liked to tell when he had a drink and that he liked alcohol warmly. He even got his legendary logging shirt from him.One day Olaf looked at Paul and said, "I miss home, I miss the way our air and our woods smelled. The sunsets... that I only saw there... How I didn't appreciate them then." He packed his backpack and returned home. But he found something very different than he remembered. Industrial cities. Factories... cafes in the cities, bathhouses. Everything he'd seen in America. was suddenly there too. The Sudeten Netherlands was booming... he was amazed. He wanted to go back to the trade he'd learned, but there wasn't as much interest in wood, and relations with the merchants were broken after Kottko's death. He took a job in a steel mill in Varnsdorf. The work was hard but well paid. He didn't get along well with his superiors and soon realised that this was not the way to go. The reason was his nature and maybe the fact that he was having affairs with his wife... a lot of women admired his shirt and also his stories about how he got it and all the things he did with his friend Paul Bunyan in America. Olaf loved women... as well as life, and one day he said, "I'm not gonna work in a steel mill... that's not life. I want to see the world again and have the world follow me." ... so began the story of Olaf and the flannel shirts. He thought he'd start making them... He started in a small house where he had a workshop. Like most Sudeten men... ...his shirts were a big seller and soon he grew. Everybody wanted an Olaf shirt. Maybe it was because Olaf started telling everybody, "My strength and the fact that women love me... I got it all because of that shirt and you can buy it because of me. "Soon he had a small factory. The shirts were sold all over the world and the world came to see Olaf... just as he wanted. When the company was doing well, Olaf disappeared. He left only a message, "I never understood the world of men. I'm going into the woods. You don't have to come looking for me, if you're in trouble I'll come back... me or one of my descendants. I hope your wives raise my blood well... " Then no one ever saw him again. Many legends began to be told of his life.