In the passage to the courtyard of the Old Town Hall in Brno, tourists and residents have been able to admire the “dragon” suspended from the ceiling for years. In fact, it is a stuffed crocodile with really impressive dimensions, but it is accompanied by a legend similar to the one told by the inhabitants of Krakow.
We have the Wawel Dragon, and the Czechs keep the dragon in Brno
Of course, there are several versions of the legend about the Brno dragon, but the general consensus is that the monster lived in a cave on the Svratka River and made trips from there to eat livestock from the farms of the local population, and sometimes also killed children. The problem was solved in a very similar way as in Krakow – a ram stuffed with slaked lime was thrown to the dragon. After eating the poisoned carcass, the dragon drank so much water from the river that it eventually killed him. Other variants of the story say that a cunning knight dropped off a fur bag or disemboweled body to the dragon, and sometimes brimstone is also mentioned. However, the end result is always the same.
Dragon from Brno photo amanderson2 / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0
As the preserved documents show, the dragon crocodile has been hanging in the Old Town Hall since at least 1608. In the city archives there are supposedly papers that report that in 1578 a “deworming” of the dragon was carried out. It is not certain where the stuffed crocodile really came from, but here too there is no shortage of different concepts. One of them says that the prepared reptile was a gift from a visiting foreign dignitary, others claim that it was a gift from the sultan to Emperor Rudolf II. Unaware of the true origin of the animal, the inhabitants of the city could figure out the rest for themselves. It is also likely that the crocodile is a prey brought from one of the Crusades.
Citizens of Brno with a crocodile photo: josefnovak3 / flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The Legend of the Wawel Dragon
The legend of the Wawel Dragon was first written down at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries by master Wincenty Kadłubek in his “Polish Chronicle”. In his version, a dragon called a “whole eater” would regularly eat a certain number of cows, and if the townspeople failed to provide the required sacrifice, the dragon would retaliate by killing as many people as there were cattle missing from the shipment.
The problem was to be solved by the sons of the ruler of the country, Grakcha. After all attempts to fight the beast failed, the ruler’s descendants came up with the idea to give the beast cow skins stuffed with sulfur. ” And as soon as he swallowed them with great greed “whole-eater”, he suffocated from the flames bursting inside, writes the chronicler. However, one of the brothers decided to use the fight with the dragon to secure the throne. So he cunningly killed his brother and blamed it on the already dead monster. When his lie came to light, he was banished from the country, and the Grakcha’s daughter, Wanda, took the throne. In Kadłubek’s version, one can also read that Krakow was built on the “dragon’s rock”, and the city itself took its name from the name of the ruler. Only Jan Długosz wrote in his chronicles that it was Prince Krak who killed the Wawel Dragon.
Source: Gazeta
Bruce is a talented author and journalist with a passion for entertainment . He currently works as a writer at the 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
