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Wawel Dragon (The Dragon of Wawel Hill in Poland)

Long ago, the Wawel Dragon (pronounced Vavel) terrorized the city of Krakow. The beast required many offerings in order to not constantly torture the city. Most of the offerings included young maidens and tons of cattle.

The Wawel Dragon was a beast which lived in a den under Wawel Hill and terrorised all the inhabitants of King Krak’s town.

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The bones of Wawel the Dragon still hang above the city to this day.... Long ago, the Wawel Dragon (pronounced Vavel) terrorized the city of Krakow. The beast required many offerings in order to not constantly torture the city. Most of the offerings included young maidens and tons of cattle. The Wawel Dragon was a beast which lived in a den under Wawel Hill and terrorised all the inhabitants of King Krak’s town. No knight could kill the monster, until a young shoemaker Skuba outsmarted the Dragon. He stuffed a ram’s hide with sulphur and pitch, and put the doctored ram in front of the Dragon’s Den. The monster caught the bait and devoured the ram. Immediately, he felt a bad pain and burning in the throat. To quench his thirst, the Dragon started to drink from the Vistula River. However, as water cannot extinguish burning sulphur, the gases produced by the fires inside him made the beast explode. All the townsfolk revelled in the news and the heroic shoemaker was properly rewarded. To commemorate the vanquishing of the Dragon, Bronisław Chromy designed a sculpture of the beast which now stands by the river at the foot of Wawel, near the Dragon's Den. The statue of Wawel is still standing and fire breathing for all to see. The bones of the dragon are hung on the Wawel Cathedral as a reminder of the defeat and victory over the fire breathing murderous monster. There are different renditions of this story and some say that Krak defeated the dragon himself with the goat stuffed with sulphur, and that is how the city got its name. Which story have you heard?

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