The Lagend of Wawel Dragon

I recently spent a few days in Cracow (Kraków is the Polish spelling), celebrating my birthday together with my partner. He had never been to Cracow and I thought he should visit at least once one of the most interesting, historic and magical cities in Poland. One day in May we arrived in Cracow. And of course we had to visit Wawel, the Royal Castle, the Cathedral and the Dragon’s Den. Yep; it is a serious thing, the Dragon’s Den under the Wawel Hill. As a creator of two extraordinary dragons, Betelgeuse and Mintaka, I could not of course ignore the fascinating legend of Cracow about the Wawel Dragon. I even made a short movie – I filmed the dragon’s den for you. I will publish it as soon as I can get my Sony camcorder software to download the video from my Sony Camcorder!

For now here is an illustration of the Wawel Dragon from Sebastian Münster's, Cosmographie Universalis from 1544,


As usual in European culture the Wawel Dragon is a monster. A carnivorous, gigantic beast, consuming young women, and he is particular fond of virgins (what is it that’s so special about virgins?!).
King Krak, a legendary king of Cracow, was very afraid that soon he would have to leave the newly founded town if no one could stop the Dragon eating young girls, killing civilians, pillaging their homes and devouring their livestock.
The bravest knights and warriors of the King took on the fight against the dragon but none of them succeed in vanquishing it. The King became desperate. When every girl in the city was eventually sacrificed except one, the King's daughter Wanda, the King promised his beautiful daughter's hand in marriage to anybody who could defeat the dragon. Great warriors from near and far fought for the prize and failed. One day, a poor cobbler's apprentice named Skuba Dratewka accepted the challenge. He stuffed a lamb with sulphur and put it outside the dragon's cave. The dragon ate it and soon became extremely thirsty. He turned to the Vistula River for relief and he drank and drank and drank. But no amount of water could quell his aching stomach, and after swelling up from drinking half of the Vistula River, he exploded! Skuba Dratewka married the King's daughter as promised and they lived happily ever after.
In Poland to this day people who are admired for dealing with tricky situations in a shrewd way are sometimes described in slang as ‘skubany’.

Introduction Video to a fantas

Introduction Video to my new story, in pictures as well as in word, about two extraordinary dragons, Betelgeuse and Mintaka from the Nebula in the Constellation of Orion.

Betelgeuse and Mintaka, the Boltzmann Babies.

Legendary Dragons and Fantasy Dragons

They are hundreds different kind of dragons. I had no idea that there are more dragon’s races and species than homo sapience’s races. They have different names, different ancestors, different background, created in different culture and different time; they look different, they behave different, they smell probably different too. They are dragons with four legs, with two legs, with wings, without wings, with long neck or short neck, good dragons and bad dragons.
My favourite species under dragons is probably “Sean Connery”- Draco from the Dragonheart. He is smart, he has sophisticated sense of humour, he is lovely, he is brave and he has a very seductive Scottish accent. :-)))
Back to the “Real” Dragons, to the mind topic of this post.
How many variety of dragons did I found till now?

Check this list:

• Fire dragon
• Water dragon
  
• Earth dragon
• Storm dragon
• Wyrm
• Wyvern
• Sea Serpent
  
• Hydra
• Lindwor
• Amphisbaena
  
• Amphitere
• Hatchling - Baby dragon in the egg
  
• Drake
  
• Naga
• Eastern Dragon ? (Chinese, Japanese – many of them water dragons, many of them without wings and don’t breath fire)
  
• Western Dragon (the one with four legs, long neck and batlike wings; with preference for a sheep, an ox or a human – consumed monthly; breath fire!)

They are probably hundreds of dragon’s names that I didn’t mention here. And by the way, a new species of dragons pop up all the time. Great exemplars are the two new dragons Betelgeuse and Mintaka that I created recently. They belong to the Dragon Civilisation called The Shepherds of Seven.

Here they are in the outer space and here can you find more images http://dragonfantasyart.com



And then they are the Legendary dragons like:

• Hydrus
• Dragon of St. George
• Drachenstein
• Bazyliszek or Basilik
  
• Beowulf
  
• Quetzalcoatl
• Apalala
• TiamatF
• Fafnir
• Smok Wawelski
• Sui-Riu
• T'ien Lung

Cheers to all these Dragons!