The Wawel Dragon

The Wawel Dragon was a beast which lived in a den under Wawel Hill and terrorised all the inhabitants of King Krak’s town. They had to feed to the monster by giving him offerings of cattle, while other tales speak of that hellspawn eating nothing but virgins. No knight could vanquish the monster, until a young shoemaker Dratewka 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.


The Wawel Dragon, photo by Artur Żyrkowski



Above: a young shoemaker while putting the ram in front of the Dragon's Den, print from Cosmographia Universalis by Sebastian Munster, 16th century (collection of JM). Below: print showing the dragon already after..., author unknown (collection of JM).