Where does the Wawel dragon live? Wawel Dragon, legend, where it is located. The terrible secret of the towers of St. Mary's Church

Translation from Polish by Sergei Donskoy.

A long time ago, in a cave under Wawel Hill, there lived a huge and terribly bloodthirsty dragon. The royal castle rose on the hill, and at its foot a city grew, the safety of which was taken care of by the wise King Krak with his valiant army. Despite the presence of the dragon, life in the city went on calmly, since the duties of the residents included delivering the required amount of food to the monster, and the dragon was quite content with this prey for a long time.

However, after some time, the dragon became very voracious, since thanks to the concerns of the citizens it grew unusually. It had a huge mouth from which fire and poisonous smoke burst out, a huge tail and paws with sharp claws. His appearance caused terror in the most fearless hearts.

The dragon began to steal sheep from the pastures, and when they were no longer enough, he began to devour cows and horses. Fear gripped the residents, children did not leave their houses, and adults cautiously crept along the castle walls. Despite all caution, people also became victims of the dragon, who had a special predilection for young girls.

In desperation, the people turned to the king and his brave knights for help. First, the king asked for advice from the sages, who were powerless and could not come up with a single way to kill the monster. Then the king challenged the bravest knights to fight the dragon, for which he promised the winner half the kingdom and the hand of the beautiful princess. However, even such a luxurious reward did not force the young knights to measure their strength with the terrible monster. The dragon continued to spread terror and death in the kingdom. And now when complete grief and despair gripped the hearts of the townspeople and the king, a young Krakow student of the shoemaker Skuba came to the castle, declaring that he knew a way to exterminate the dragon. He asked the king to deliver him a sheep's skin and a large amount of sulfur. The king, somewhat surprised by such a request, ordered everything that the shoemaker needed to be delivered. The servants quickly carried out the order, and Skuba deftly sewed the sheep's skin and filled it with sulfur. After all the preparations, the result was a large, very appetizing-looking sheep. The servants and residents of the city looked with surprise at the skillful work of the shoemaker. Then they helped him carry the sheep to the dragon’s cave and quickly ran away, as an ever-hungry dragon jumped out of it and instantly devoured the stuffed animal. Very soon a terrible roar was heard from the cave and flames appeared. The hill shook, and the monster wandered towards the Vistula, as a terrible flame devoured its insides. The dragon drank so much water that it burst. The happy townspeople and the king thanked the clever and clever Skuba, who received the promised kingdom and the beautiful princess as his wife. Joy and love triumphed in Wawel Castle, and the king's subjects constantly gained wealth for themselves, since they were ruled by a wise and kind king.

WALKING AROUND KRAKOW
PART THREE
LEGENDS ABOUT THE WAWEL DRAGON AND THE TOWERS OF THE MARIAC CHURCH

In its ancient images, Krakow is presented as a settlement nestled under a built-up hill. In fact, the Wawel Hills, with an average height of 20 - 25 meters, once abruptly ending on the southern side into the Vistula, have always dominated the Krakow panorama. People lived in water-washed caves already in the Paleolithic era. On a rocky peak, an excellent defensive point, withVIcentury a fortified settlement appears. INIXcentury there was a fortified “grod” here, the center of the Vistula tribal unification, with Christian temple, as archaeological excavations have shown. Wawel later became the residence of princes and kings.

There are many legends associated with Wawel Hill, the most popular of which is legend of the wawel dragon , which every Polish schoolchild in Krakow can tell you. There are several versions of this legend, although basically their plot is the same, with the exception of details.

I will give here the most common version.


So, in ancient times, a terrible dragon lived in a cave near Wawel, poisoning the lives of the inhabitants of the Krakow castle. The more he ate, the more he demanded tribute from the townspeople, and finally began to hunt people.
The local ruler, a prince named Krak, sent his squires throughout the area, proclaiming that anyone who kills the man-eating dragon will receive a great reward. There were many brave knights, but they all died in the dragon’s mouth.

At this time, in the vicinity of Wawel, there lived a young shoemaker Skuba, who carefully watched the knights’ attempts to defeat the monster. Convinced that the dragon could not be defeated by force of arms, Scuba came up with a cunning way to rid Krakow of the monster. He sewed resin and sulfur into the sheep's skin and threw the bait under the dragon's cave. The hungry dragon, smelling the ram, believing that this was another sacrifice of the Krakow people, swallowed the bait. And after that, he began to belch fire, as sulfur ignited in the monster’s belly. The dragon ran to the Vistula, hoping that he would be able to extinguish the fire burning his insides, and began to drink river water. He drank for so long that in the end he simply burst. And the cunning Scuba made a lot of high-quality shoes from dragon skin, which he sold at the market with considerable profit.

Whether the winner of the monster Scuba received any reward from Prince Krak or not, the legend is silent. It also remains not entirely clear that the grateful residents named their city not in honor of the city’s savior, the shoemaker Skuba, but in honor of the prince, whose entire role in defeating the dragon was reduced to sending heralds.

However, in other versions of this legend (in particular, the oldest of those that have survived to our time in written form - in the “Chronicle of the Poles”, written by Vincent Kadlubko at the endXIIcenturies) the winner of the dragon is either Prince Krak himself or his sons, only instead of a ram a calf appears in them.

But be that as it may, it must be admitted that the Poles have learned well how to create tourist attractions from almost nothing in order to pump money out of naive tourists. This is just like the story of the unforgettable Ostap Bender with the Pyatigorsk Proval in “The Twelve Chairs” by Ilf and Petrov: “For what purpose are money charged for entering the Proval? - So as not to fail too much...”

One of the caves near Wawel (at the foot of the Villainous Tower) was called the “Smoke Pit” (“smok”, translated from Polish as “serpent” or “dragon”), nearby in 1970 a statue of a dragon was placed, spewing from its mouth every minute fire, and you're done - the money flows like a river!





Well, everything is correct! Tourists love it, the kids are absolutely delighted! Moreover, small dragon figurines and magnets with his image are selling like hot cakes!

Well, since we’re talking about Krakow legends, we can’t ignore those that are told about Krakow’s landmarks, no less significant than Wawel, namely St. Mary’s Cathedral, or more precisely, its two towers.
So, legends about the towers of St. Mary's Church .


It is simply impossible not to notice that the two towers of the Church in honor of the Ascension of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or simply, the St. Mary’s Church, have different heights. No architectural plans have survived to this day to explain the difference in height of the towers. But this difference is perfectly explained by local legends.


The first one is official, it is included in all guides to Krakow in several slightly different versions. If we combine these options, then the legend goes as follows (I have added only a few historical details here).


On the site of the modern church, which is the main city cathedral (the royal church in Wawel is the main diocesan church), there was previously a Romanesque church, which inherited the irregular orientation of the building, different from the rectangular layout Market Square. The second church that stood on this site was destroyed during Batu’s invasion in 1241. Thus, the modern church is already the third here.


Construction of the main volume of the current church began in the middleXIVcentury, and ended in 1397, when the chief architect Mikolaj Werner erected the vault of the middle nave. But the towers of the church were ordered during the reign of Sigismund the Shy (1243 - 1279), that is, if you trust Polish sources, even before the temple itself was founded.



The task of building two towers was undertaken by two brothers, each of whom supervised the construction of a separate tower. The older brother, whose work progressed faster, erected the spire and left Krakow for a while, and when he returned, he noticed that his younger brother’s tower would eventually be taller.


In a fit of envy, he rushed with a knife at his competitor and killed him (to confirm the truth of this legend, the very same legendary knife hangs above the entrance to the Cloth Hall). Well, after killing his brother, the killer, tormented by remorse, pierced his heart with the same knife and threw himself from the top of his tower onto the stones of the Market Square.




Shocked by all this, the townspeople crossed out from the city books the names of the brothers who had desecrated the temple with their tragic competition. The construction of the towers was stopped for a long time after that; they were completed only towards the endXVcentury. But the difference in the height of the towers remained.


To be honest, I don't really like this legend.
Another one on the same topic is much more interesting, especially since, despite its certain piquancy, it ends not with murder, but with a happy ending. (Because in printed version I haven’t come across this legend anywhere, I’m citing it from memory because I heard it).

So , second legend says that the construction of the towers of the St. Mary's Church was entrusted by the city authorities to two of the richest Krakow families, who were in enmity with each other that lasted several generations (like the Verona Montagues and Capulets from the famous Shakespearean tragedy).
Well, let’s assume that the symbol of one of the families was a lion, and the emblem of the second was a rhinoceros or an elephant (after all, in the Middle Ages, houses in Krakow did not have numbering, but were designated by some kind of family coat of arms, and in the absence of these, by any other noticeable signs):





The two clans, who agreed to reconcile, decided to consolidate this by marriage, while the young husband - a representative of the first family - was entrusted with leading the construction of one tower, and his wife - with leading the construction of the second.
The first family (lions) triumphed in advance, because no one especially doubted that the husband was the head of the family, and therefore his construction work would be more successful than that of an inexperienced girl who understood nothing about construction. This means that their clan will finally assert its advantage over its competitors (rhinoceros or elephants).

But no one expected one thing: the young wife turned out to be so hot in bed that every night she drove her husband to complete exhaustion, and while he was lying in bed from morning until lunch, moving away from lovemaking, she went to the construction site to supervise the construction work her towers. And after a few months it became obvious that the wife’s tower was higher than her husband’s tower. But the loving husband took it for granted; love turned out to be stronger than the enmity of the family clans, which eventually finally reconciled.
But only the wife’s tower remained higher, which did not prevent the happy spouses from living their entire long lives in harmony and dying on the same day, leaving many children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.


Isn't this legend better than the one about fratricide and suicide that is spread in all Krakow guidebooks?

And finally, one more from Krakow legend - about pigeon knights .

As in any square where numerous tourists willingly feed pigeons, there are a great many of these flying rats (sorry, but I can’t stand them) on Krakow’s Market Square.


But, according to Krakow legends, these are not ordinary pigeons, but enchanted knights!
This supposedly happened during the reign of HenrikIVProbus on the Krakow princely throne inXIIIcentury. The ruler really wanted to unite all the Polish lands and become king, but he just didn’t have enough money. Then a sorceress came to his aid, bewitching the prince’s knights, turning them into doves. They, sitting on the St. Mary's Church (which, however, had not yet been built at that time, but this is a legend, isn't it?), began pecking at stones, which, falling to the ground, turned into gold coins.
Prince Henrik, having collected these coins, went to Rome to ask for patronage from the Pope. But on the way, feasting and celebrating, he spent all the magic coins and never returned to Krakow. And his knights forever remained pigeons, who await their prince in the city's Market Square.

These are the legends.
I hope you, my dear friends, found it interesting.

Thank you for attention.
Sergey Vorobiev.



However, there will, of course, be a continuation...

In Krakow at the foot Wawel Hill there is a dragon breathing fire from time to time. Sometimes he makes ominous sounds. But people are not afraid of it, because this is a sculptural composition that was erected in memory of the long-time inhabitant of the local cave.

Slavic legends contain many references to huge lizards. A legend of the Wawel dragon, probably the most famous Polish legend.

There are several variations of the legend, and this is not surprising, because this happened a long time ago. And old stories are passed on in different ways and gradually change. Let's tell you the most common version.

Appearance of the Dragon

As the legend says, everything happened during the reign of the founder of the city of Krakow - under King Krak. Polish tradition describes him as a good, wise ruler who cared about his people and was concerned about the development of the city. But the calm times did not last long, horror and fear settled among the subjects of Krak. At first there were many complaints about the loss of livestock: a cow, a sheep or a ram got lost. People began to be afraid to let their livestock out into the fertile meadows of the Vistula River.

The unknown was scary. To find out what was going on, King Krak ordered his guards to guard the meadows and capture the cattle thief. The guards hid in the forests around the city and waited. Nothing happened for several days, and they decided that the danger had passed. But one morning, when the sun had not risen, the guards noticed movement between the trees. As they approached, the guards regretted being in this place. They saw large paws and a body covered with scales. Sheaves of fire burst out of the monster's mouth. It was a dragon.

Few knights were able to reach the king alive. For a long time, the royal advisers could not figure out what to do with such an unwanted neighbor. In order not to anger the dragon, it was decided to feed it by sacrificing a small amount of livestock. This was not a very good decision. Because after a few years the dragon grew so much that he began to miss these offerings. And he started attacking people.

It became clear that Krak would either defeat the dragon or lose all his subjects. They began to look for daredevils to fight the huge lizard. A big reward was announced for the winner. The king even agreed to marry his daughter to someone who agreed to fight. Knights and adventurers began to flock to Krakow, but no one volunteered for a duel. Everyone knew that directly confronting him would result in instant death. After all Wawel dragon was huge and had a fire-breathing mouth!

How the shoemaker defeated the dragon

The king had already lost hope that everything would end well. But one Krakow shoemaker named Scuba a brilliant idea came to mind. He came up with the idea of ​​making a stuffed sheep and filling it completely with sulfur.

The sheep really turned out like a real one. Early in the morning, while the dragon was still sleeping, Scuba made his way to the entrance of the cave and left the scarecrow in a visible place. And only he walked away safe place, as a hungry and angry dragon appeared from the cave.

Without thinking for a long time, he swallowed the bait whole. The legend describes that there was such a howl that all the leaves fell off the nearby trees. The sulfur that filled the effigy began to torment the dragon with unbearable pain. In order to somehow extinguish it, the dragon rushed to the river and began to drink water for a very long time. He drank for so long that the Vistula became half its size! In the end, after drinking too much river water, the dragon burst like balloon. So a simple shoemaker defeated the dragon and received recognition from the townspeople and the royal daughter as his wife.

Archaeological finds near Krakow confirm that giant lizards actually lived here in ancient times. Skeletons and bones were found in large quantities. Dinosaur bones can be seen in museums in Poland.

In memory of the legend, city residents named the street Dragon Street and installed a fire-breathing statue, which tourists also loved. The funniest thing is that you can order an eruption of flame from the dragon’s mouth via SMS. The cave, which is called the Dragon Pit, is open to the public and is very popular. When you are in Krakow, be sure to visit the Royal Castle and Cathedral go down to the cave and see where the legendary dragon lived, causing terrible fear and horror.

I spent two years of my life in magnificent Krakow. I currently live in Berlin, but from time to time I travel to Krakow for my scientific affairs. During my life there I... Today I will tell you some urban legends associated with the former capital of the Polish kingdom. If you have been on an excursion to Krakow, then perhaps you have heard some of these legends. And if you have been following me for a long time, then most likely you have seen these texts on one of my social networks. I have not published these stories on the blog before - now is the time to collect them in one place. So, Krakow urban legends.

Defeat the Krakow dragon.

The informal symbol of Krakow is the dragon, which is associated with a wonderful legend.

According to legend, the dragon terrorized local residents since the founding of the city and caused a lot of trouble to its ruler, the legendary King Krak. The dragon's favorite delicacy was young, unmarried girls. In exchange for the monster not destroying the entire city and eating all its inhabitants, the townspeople were forced to leave one unfortunate victim once a month in front of the cave in which the dragon lived.

However, one day there were no more young girls left in Krakow except Wanda, the only and beloved daughter of King Krak. In desperation, the king began to look for the bravest of the warriors, who could cope with the dragon and save the royal daughter, and at the same time the entire city. And no matter how many brave warriors tried to fight the dragon, the terrible monster easily dealt with everyone.

But who would have thought that a simple poor shoemaker named Scuba could defeat the dragon - not by force, but by his ingenuity! Skuba took a young lamb, gutted it, stuffed its insides with flammable sulfur, sewed up the carcass and placed it in front of the angry beast's cave. The hungry monster, of course, swallowed it without further hesitation. When the sulfur inside the dragon began to burn, burning his stomach, he ran to the Vistula River and began to drink water, trying to extinguish the flames. He drank and drank, drank half the river and exploded!

The city was freed from a terrible threat, and the beautiful Wanda was not only saved, but soon after this event she married - and not just anyone, but her savior, a simple shoemaker Skuba. The dragon statue on the banks of the Vistula under Wawel Hill reminds us of this story.

Wawel dragon. Source: Wikipedia

The terrible secret of the towers of St. Mary's Church.

On the corner of the Market Square stands one of the main symbols of Krakow - the magnificent St. Mary's Church, which is decorated with two tall towers. It is immediately noticeable that these towers are not the same in height - one of the towers is noticeably higher. And one of the urban legends explains the reason for this discrepancy.

The fact is that the construction of the two towers of St. Mary’s Church was entrusted to two siblings. Soon the older brother realized that his tower was shorter than the younger brother’s, and could not come to terms with this fact. Out of envy, he killed his brother. But the pangs of conscience did not give the killer peace, so on the day when the construction of the building was completed, he took the same knife with which he killed his brother, cut out his own heart and threw himself from the top of St. Mary’s Church.

Of course, this is just a legend. Fortunately, there were no brothers who lost their lives during the construction of the towers. The real reason for the difference in height is that one of the towers also served as an observation tower. From a bird's eye view, the guard could be the first to notice fires or the approach of enemy troops and notify the townspeople of the dangers. In order for the view from the tower to be good, the structure had to be of sufficient height. The second tower did not have such a purpose, so it could have been lower.


St. Mary's Church

Ethnic cleansing of King Vladislav.

In the Middle Ages, the inhabitants of Krakow did not speak any languages. In addition to the Poles, Czechs, Germans, Jews, Armenians, Turks and God knows who else lived here. However, one Polish king, who was known for his tough temper, decided to put an end to such ethnic diversity.

Vladislav, nicknamed Loketek (literally, “elbow” - the king was not tall) was one of those rulers who was easy to anger. And he was terribly annoyed by the fact that he could not understand his subjects who did not speak English. Polish language. Therefore, he decided to carry out something like “ethnic cleansing”, only he approached the matter in a very original way. He chose four Polish words that would not be difficult for a Pole to pronounce, but would require some effort for a foreigner to pronounce. Every resident royal city over seven years old had to say these four words out loud. Those who pronounce them without errors were given the right to continue to live in Krakow, but those who failed the test had to pay very heavily for this. These Polish words were: soczewica, koło, miele, młyn (pronounced roughly like [soczewica], [ko-uo], [mele] and [m-uyn]).

At the time of this peculiar exam, a large number of Czechs and Germans lived in Krakow. To those who owned Czech language, it was relatively easy to pronounce these words due to the similarities between Western Slavic languages. But the Germans were less fortunate. It is said that it was then that hundreds of the city's German-speaking residents were killed, and many others were driven out of the city or lost their property.


Vladislav Loketek.

Poland today is a dynamically developing economy and a growing standard of living... And against the backdrop of this, it becomes known that a monster has settled in one of the main cities of Poland. A terrible dragon terrorizes the local population, who are forced to please it with victims and alms in the form of cows or flocks of sheep, so that it does not devour the local residents. The dragon chose a cave right under the palace hill. The army is unable to find control over the raging beast. When any kind of weapon or armed person approaches, the dragon tears the brave man to pieces, and burns the military equipment with the fire spewed from his mouth. The government promises a reward to whoever can defeat the dragon...
This is exactly what the headlines of Krakow newspapers during the time of King Krak would have looked like if the mass press had been in vogue then. But no, it’s still a long way from the tabloid press, and Krakow is being terrorized by an unknown dragon, or, as the Poles know him, Smok Wawelski. It was he who terrified the residents of Krakow, and did this for quite a long time. Trying to escape the cruel fate of being eaten, people bring cattle to the cave and leave them to be eaten. This is enough for a week, but if someone did not bring the cattle for lunch to the voracious dragon, he would eat the people. It's messy, of course. Something clearly had to be done about this, and, I must say, the townspeople even tried, but to no avail. Time passed, the monster’s appetites grew. Everything according to the laws of the genre.
One of the legends about the Wawel Dragon, dating back to the 12th century and recorded later by Wikenty Kadlubek, says that Krak sent his two sons Krak and Lech to kill the raging fiend. Those, unable to defeat him in battle, came up with a plan. Taking the skin of a cow, they filled it with sulfur and, having formed a stuffed animal, placed it in front of the cave of the Wawel Dragon. He, having had breakfast with the offering, choked in a simple manner and died. Subsequently, the brothers quarreled, not sharing primacy in coming up with a way to destroy the enemy. The quarrel ended in fratricide. After Krak's death, his son ascended the throne. Later, the fratricide was revealed and he was expelled from the country.
But there is another version of the legend. Often this is what most Poles have known since childhood. The plot with the dragon is the same. The only difference is that the dragon was killed by a shoemaker's apprentice - a young guy named Scuba. It was he who figured out how to defeat the devourer of local residents and the destroyer of Krakow. He stuffed the skin of a ram with the same sulfur and built a stuffed animal that looked like a real animal, which he slipped to the sleeping dragon. He woke up, pounced on the “victim” and instantly swallowed it. A terrible, fire-like heartburn from within began to burn the dragon. He rushed to the Vistula and began to greedily drink water. And he drank it until he drank half the river and burst. This is how the young shoemaker defeated the Wawel Dragon.
But this is a legend. I wonder if there is scientific information about a certain monster that lived in the vicinity of Krakow, or is it just fiction?
Those who have studied the legend of the Wawel Dragon give us several versions. One of them is that, perhaps, the legend of the dragon contains events related to the arrival of the Avar tribes on the lands of Poland and settled, including in the region of the Krakow upland, in the 2nd half of the 6th century. The Avars imposed tribute on the local people and brutally treated those who did not pay tribute. Historians also give a version that the legend may be a reflection biblical history about Daniel and the dragon (Bible. Old Testament. Book of the Prophet Daniel. Chapter 14.), only in the Polish version.
Another interesting discovery archaeologists did. Not far from Krakow they found fossilized dinosaur bones. Moreover, as it turned out during the processing of the skeleton, these may be the bones of the most ancient dinosaur on the planet. Scientists are in no hurry to draw final conclusions on this matter. Moreover, during excavations near the city of Opole, a great many dinosaur skeletons were discovered. Found near the village of Krasiejów in the Opole Voivodeship by Professor Jerzy Dzik, the dinosaurs were named Silesaurus opolensis after the region of discovery. In addition, Polonosuchus silesiacus, Cyclotosaurus, Metoposaurus and other reptile species were found and described there.
So the Wawel Dragon led scientists to the habitats of its very tangible ancestors. But even today the Wawel Dragon can be found in Krakow. The city has a Dragon Street (Ulica Smocza), and in 1972, in memory of the legend, a fire-breathing sculpture of the Wawel Dragon was installed. Moreover, the Wawel Dragon not only attracts tourists to the city, but also makes a feasible financial contribution to the treasury of Krakow. The fact is that the dragon breathes fire... via SMS. Moreover, it can do this every 15 seconds. It is enough, while in Krakow, to send a message SMOK to number 7168, and in response you will receive the message: “Greetings near Wawel! Now I will breathe fire for you!” An SMS costs 1.22 zlotys. It is reported that the dragon is quite capable of earning up to 3,000 zlotys per month, which is close to the average salary in Poland. Based on such good earnings, he no longer needs offerings. If you are in Krakow, visit the Wawel Dragon.

 

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