Contrary to some beliefs, the bagel was not created in the shape of a stirrup to commemorate the victory of Poland’s King John III Sobieski over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
Linguist Leo Rosten wrote in The Joys of Yiddish about the first known mention of the Polish word bajgiel derived from the Yiddish word bagel in the “Community Regulations” of the city of Kraków in 1610, which stated that the item was given as a gift to women in childbirth.
In the 16th and first half of the 17th centuries, the bajgiel became a staple of Polish cuisine and a staple of the Slavic diet generally. Its name derives from the Yiddish word beygal from the German dialect word beugel, meaning “ring” or “bracelet”.
