We're taking a quick jaunt back to Europe this time. Poland, to be precise, where we can listen to the tale of the Wawel Dragon. Now Wawel Hill in Poland is located in Krakow, which at one point was the capital of Poland. People have been there forever, though, and in the late 13th century AD the city's founder, King Krakus, built a castle.

Promptly, a dragon appeared from a cave in Wawel hill below the castle. While there are a number of differing versions of this tale, none of them really look too closely at the appearance of our dragon. I'm just gonna assume it was a mash-up of terrible 80's monster movie Leviathan and that whole affair with the Dwarves of Moria: someone dug too greedily, dig too deeply, etc.

Woodcuts, sculpture, and painting seem to agree that the dragon was a western type; a scaly, reptilian body, sinuous neck, lots of fangs, fiery breath. It may or may not have had more than four legs. It didn't seem to have wings and couldn't fly. So, classic western dragon.

After an appearance that I can only imagine bore passing resemblance to the Kool-Aid Man, The Wawel Dragon immediately set about terrorizing the countryside. Nice! It destroyed homes, devoured livestock, killed peasants, and especially delighted in devouring young maidens. Numerous great warriors tried to take it on, and THE WAWEL DRAGON SHOWED THEM ALL.

With the king getting desperate, he put out a call for ANYONE who could stop this monster. Presumeably, the Wawel dragon laughed, flipped him the bird, and destroyed someone's house. But a young cobbler's apprentice named Skuba accepted the challenge. Rather than pick up a sword, he grabbed a sheep and stuffed it with sulfur. Scholars are silent on what the sheep thought about this. Leaving it outside the dragon's cave, Skuba hid, which showed admittedly more perspicacity than the idiots who had previously tried to slay the dragon.

The Wawel Dragon found the sheep and didn't spend two seconds thinking about devouring it. Huge mistake. The sulfur combined with its internal fires to brew up something awful in its guts. The Wawel Dragon then decided to take up the Gallon Challenge and raced to the Vistula River. It drank to put out the fire, which didn't work, so it kept drinking and drinking... and promptly died. Skuba was hailed as a hero, married the king's daughter, and everyone paused to somberly reflect on the drawbacks of viral internet challenges.

Now, the Wawel Dragon is a pretty cool dragon, with a lot of classic tropes. Wrecking the countryside, fire-breathing, general malevolence, and vanquishing by a hero who wins the hand of a princess. There's no treasure and it can't fly. BUT, the twist of the dragon slayer being a clever cobbler is nicely appreciated. I give the Wawel Dragon a solid "B."

I couldn't find any painting that wasn't an ancient woodcut, so here's a picture of the statue of the Wawel dragon, from Bronisław Chromy, 1969. Photograph by Wikipedia user Eirne, 2006

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