The Wawel Dragon

Wawel Dragon is a legend from Krakow. I hope I don't offend any Krakowians with this deconstruction. Apologies if I do. 

The Legend of Wawel Dragon had haunted the people of Krakow for as long as anyone could remember. Every month the seething, angry dragon would emerge from his cave at the foot of Wawel Hill and devour the young virgin girl the locals had left for him. Woe betide the villages if they hadn’t left one there; then the dragon would wreak havoc on the village, destroying crops and buildings with his fiery breath. The elders recalled the great fires that swept through the town started by the dragon and the great floods caused by the dragon’s wrath.

Crippled with fear, the town folk had long ago agreed to sacrifice a young virgin every month to sate the dragon; the slaughter of the innocence to protect the many.

So once a month a young girl was chosen to be the sacrificial lamb. The womenfolk were told to stay indoors while a group of brave men would go out to the foot of Wawel Hill to deliver the girl and to try to capture or kill the dragon. Every month the girl was killed but the men failed to slay the beast. They came back trophyless telling horrible stories of an enormous reptile with steamy breath and giant claws keeping them back before eating the girl like a crazed seagull. Some had crazy scratch marks from getting too close to the beast, others had singed hair.

Hanna didn’t believe a word of it. For a start how did the dragon know what day it was, and how would he know if the girl was a virgin? And what would it matter if she wasn’t? She knew full well her sister Magda was no virgin and so did the men who had selected her to be the chosen one. And so it was 3 months ago on Magda’s 16^th birthday the men had led Magda ‘the virgin’ to her death but Hanna was sure something fishy was going on.

Hanna made up her mind, this month she’d defy the curfew, she’d follow the men to the lair and wait, watch for herself the dragon emerge and the men fight him. She wasn’t keen on watching the dragon eating his dinner, but she had to find out once and for all what this was all about.

It was dark and cold as Hanna tiptoed her way down towards the dragon’s lair. The hairs on her neck stood up on end and she shivered in her big coat. She wondered what it must have been like for her sister to take this journey, tied naked to a stake; crying? screaming? or just resigned to her fate? Hanna found a hiding place and crouched down to wait.

Twenty minutes later she heard the sound of voices and a female sob. She saw the haze of light of flame torches.

The men didn’t stop at the entrance to the cave but went in. This wasn’t what they claimed happened, their stories told of pitched battles at the mouth of the lair. But in they went and Hanna would have to follow. She took a deep breath and walked into the cave, close enough to be able to use the light of the men’s torches but far enough away to stay hidden. She was scared now, really scared, she could feel goosepimples on her arms and legs and her stomach was flipping pancakes. The men were laughing, chatting, too relaxed to be dragon slayers.

They stopped and put down the girl and untied her. Hanna watched silently. She could see mounds of earth all around the cave. She stood on one to get a better view, the earth shifted underneath her; she miraculously managed to regain her balance without making any noise.

The poor girl stood in front of the men, tears in her eyes, waiting, but for what? The men circled her and the one stepped forward. The man had lust in his eyes, and lust in his hand, he took the girl roughly by the arms.  Hanna turned away, this was no dragon attack, this was an evil, vile, barbaric human attack. The village men, men she knew, men she respected,  the teacher, the butcher, the priest all taking part in this disgusting ceremony.

She didn’t know where it came from, or how she did it but she let out a guttural howl, it sounded like the roar a really angry dragon might make; a furious, aggressive sound that froze the men in their tracks. They looked around frantically, panic in their eyes, and then ran, scattered, getting out of the cave like the cowards they were, leaving Hanna and the sobbing girl alone not to fight a dragon but to fight their demons.