THE WAWEL DRAGON
In ancient times, the Wawel Dragon terrorised King Krak’s city. The beast required ransoms of cattles everyday, otherwise it would devour virgins… No knight could vanquish the monster, until a young shoemaker called Skuba 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, hungry as always, caught the bait. Immediately, it felt a bad pain and burning in its stomach. To quench its 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. The shoemaker was properly awarded by the king and till this day, people from Krakow use the word “Skubany” to describe someone clever and sneaky. When you visit the castle during REM Cracow 2021, don’t forget to visit the statue of the dragon at the bank of Vistula river – near its cave.