Smok Wawelski, my favourite dragon

To be growing up in Cracow can be a real privilege. If your parents use all the magical sides which Cracow has to offer, you will think that fairy tale creatures do co-exist with you and you meet them here and there. The city is full of legends and places that pimp your imagination. The most important story is the one of Wawel dragon - Smok Wawelski.

The dragon and all what was left of the poor virgins

Smok Wawelski has moved one day into a cave underneath the royal castle of Cracow called Wawel. The hill that is the foundation for the castle is a white jurassic rock and these rock formations tend to have caves. A perfect home for a dragon. Also, there is this big city next door - a constant supply of cattle and virgins. Could a Smok ask for more? Smok Wawelski ate everything but as a real dragon he obviously found virgins the best. These culinary preferences were of course not appreciated by the locals, above all the king was not amused.
You are probably already guessing what happened next: The king decided that all knights of the kingdom were supposed to fight the beast and who would succeed, he will gain the hand of the princess and the half of the kingdom.                       The princess

As you can imagine they all have died a horrifying death.

                                The left overs of dragon's meal

 

 A smart ass had to be found. As unlikely as it sounds a young shoemaker applied for the job of killing the Smok. As the king was desperate and his most courageous knights were by now not only dead but also digested including their armors, he agreed to give Szewczyk Dratewka a chance. The young guy killed a sheep, stuffed it with brimstone and placed it in front of the cave. The dragon which has never had enough ate the sheep and immediately the beast felt outrageous thirst. The dragon was so thirsty that it started to spit fire.

The smart ass Szewczyk Dratewka

The left overs of the poor sheep and the thirsty dragon:

In order to get a relief, the dragon started to drink water from the river Vistula flowing next to his cave. For the brimstone burnt so badly the poor creature would not stop to drink and eventually exploded.

The Big Bang at the Vistula River

The brave Szewczyk took the princess as his wife and after the death of the old king, he became a king himself eventually.

He of course did not hesitate to make himself a pair of shoes out of the dragon's skin. (Crocodile Dundee was not Australian, oh no!)

Today, you will find a lot of smoks all over the city: as an integrated part of architecture, like the elements of rain pipes on the roofs of the royal castle:

The souvenir shops are full of smok wawelskis in any kind of variation out of any material:

Kids love the Smok Wawelski story and their self made szopki (Christmas cribs which are one of the traditional things to do in Cracow before the Christmas) always contain the figure of the dragon visiting Baby Jesus:

And in front of the Wawel castle, in front of the cage which you can of course visit as well as the castle, there is the statue of Smok Wawelski spitting fire every three minutes, fascinating the kids and their adults too.

   Disclaimer: during making of this story no dragons, virgins, knights nor sheeps have been harmed!

Pictures who helped documenting the legend but are not shot in Cracow:

- "Left overs of virgins", "The knights", "The archers" and "The helmets" are scenes from Malbork, the crusaders' castle in Poland at the 600th anniversary of the big encirclement.

- "The skulls" is a shot of the window of The Dungeon in Hamburg.

- "Dead horse" and "The erotical scene" have been made in Hamburg's Kunsthalle at a Pop Art exhibition.

- "The left overs of the sheep" has been spotted in the Viking museum in the Ringköbing region.

- "The big bang" is a Mexican firework which won 2011 the international fireworks competition in Hannover.

- "The shoes" is a still life caught in the act on the frozen surface of Maschsee in Hanover, February 2012