The Wavel Dragon

this is an unedited version of a story that will be featured in the gallery book for my project Wypominky Kobiety.

Wawel Castle sits on a hill beside the Vistula River in the city of Kraków. Under Wawel hill there is a cave. Inside that cave lives a dragon. She is called Smok Wawelska (the Dragon of Wawel.) I say lives because dragons are eternal and they come and go in all the old stories. Poland is a land of dragons, but Wawelska is the most famous. Like other dragons, she is a guardian and a threat. A symbol of uncontrolled force that sometimes blesses, sometimes curses.

For many years, it is alleged, Smok Wawelska lived under the hill in Kraków and tormented the locals with her hunger. The men fed her rams. When the rams ran out, the men fed her women. This is because men are much more loyal to each other than they are to women. Eventually King Krakus decided this arrangement was unacceptable and called for the brave warriors of Poland to come and slay this dragon.

Easier said than done, apparently. Many warriors came and were subsequently consumed by the dragon. In some stories, it is Princess Wanda with the help of her brothers, who finally beat the dragon into submission. In other stories, a cobbler from the outland comes with a clever scientific solution. He makes a statue of a sheep, stuffed with sulfur. Greedy Smok Wawelska eats up the sheep. All dragons are greedy, it’s just part of their nature. The sulfur made the dragon very thirsty, so she went to the river and drank a great quantity of water. The cobbler was clever with chemicals it seems. When sulfur and water combine the mixture becomes quite explosive. In the cobbler’s story, ingenuity wins and the dragon blows up. We assume he was rewarded handsomely by the king.

Dragons are forever, though, and there is more to Smok’s story. The dragon is a great mother now, in the land where she was once feared. She still lives in the cave under Wawel Hill, keeping it warm and protecting it. The castle sits on top of the hill at once revering and fearing the mother dragon. The people of Poland build monuments to their dragons. The situation is complex- the two need each other. Smok Wawelska- fierce like my mothers before me, guarding her golden horde.