Story Time: a new series of tall tales and legends for grown ups and not so grown ups.
Adapted & Presented by Anna Piwowarska
Produced & Directed by Amy Drozdowska
A long, long time ago there was a small, peaceful village, in the South of Poland. It was situated on the Vistula River, right next to Wawel Hill. The inhabitants of this village were simple, happy people who worked hard on their farms so they could feed their families. Their ruler was King Krak - a good man who treated them well.
At the end of each summer, when the harvest was gathered, the villagers celebrated with a feast. They would eat and drink their fill, and afterwards they spent the night sitting around a fire. One such summer’s night, the village elder disclosed a secret that would change the villagers’ lives forever:
“Right over there, under the Wawel Hill, “he pointed”there is a network of caves. In those caves, sleeps a dragon so enormous and terrifying that if he was to wake up it would be the end of us all.”
A group of boys sat listening to the story. “A dragon!” they whispered excitedly, “finally something exciting in our boring, little village.” So, that night after the feast, when their parents had fallen into a deep sleep, the boys lit torches from the remnants of the fire and made their way to Wawel Hill.
“I’m afraid,” said the youngest boy, “What happens if we wake him up?”
“Don’t be silly,” said the leader of the group “Dragons don’t exist. It’s just a story they made up to scare us.”
“So, how come no one has ever been inside the caves?” asked the youngest boy in a small voice.
But the leader ignored him and quickened his pace. The moon was full and it shone down on the boys. In truth, they all felt a little scared but no one wanted to say so. It was too late to back out now…
When they finally reached the hill, they looked down into the dark cave. All of them were very quiet. Finally, the leader stepped forward and entered the cave. After him came the other boys, with the youngest, at the very end. The cave was cold and dark and seemed to be never ending. The boys moved quietly, hardly breathing let alone speaking. There was a certain feeling, a bad feeling that they all had. They wanted to run away but something drew them to go further and further into the darkness.After a while, the air changed, becoming warm and foul smelling. There was also a sound – a strange sound. None of the boys could make out what it was. The boys looked back but they could no longer see the entrance to the cave. In front and behind them there was complete darkness. Their torches had burnt down, all apart from the youngest boy, who was now leading the group. He walked lightly, almost tiptoed, as if he knew that they were approaching something frightening…
And suddenly, they saw it. The light of the torch lit up a shining wall of purply-green scales. In front of them was an enormous sleeping dragon. He was snoring loudly and out of his mouth came a cloud of hot stinking breath. The boys froze in their tracks. It was a dragon - a real life dragon! They were so close that they could reach out and touch him. Slowly, without thinking the leader reached out and brushed one of the scales with his hand. The touch was as light as a feather. He thought that the scale would be cold and slimy, but it was warm like an animal but without the fur. Suddenly, the dragon opened one of his eyes. It was only half open, a slit really, but inside the yellow liquid eye focused on the boys. The boys turned on their heels and started to run. They ran so fast that they felt like they were flying. And all the time, they could hear the dragon, gathering speed behind the. First a thud, then more quickly - running, galloping after them.
It felt like hours but in a matter of minutes the boys burst out of the cave. It was now morning and the bright sunshine blinded them. They ran down the hill, towards the village. By the time they reached the village, they were all shouting and crying, so much that the villagers who were not yet up, thought that there was a fire and ran outside still in their pyjamas. When they all looked up at the hill, they saw the dragon standing at the entrance to the cave. They couldn’t believe their eyes. As he stood up on his hind legs, he looked like he was getting ready to pounce on the village below. Although, actually he was just stretching out his wings and yawning. He had been asleep for many years and was feeling very stiff.
The elder villager, who had told the story of the dragon, looked at the boys. He knew that there was no use in shouting at them. After all, it had been partly his fault that they’d gone to look for the dragon.
“What will he do now that he’s awake?” asked the youngest boy once he had stopped crying.
“He’s been asleep for many years so he’s probably very hungry,” said the elder. The villagers looked into the distance as the dragon started flapping his wings and took off in their direction.
For days and nights, the villagers listened to the dragon carrying off their livestock. First he took a couple of sheep from the neighbouring pasture. Thankfully the villagers had plenty of sheep so they kept calm. However, when he turned to cows, that’s when things started to get worrying. Cows were needed for their milk, and milk was used to make butter and cheese which they needed to survive. But what could they do? The dragon turned up and took whatever he fancied. One day he felt like chicken, the next day he felt like some pork. And all he had to do is breath fire over what he chose to eat and he had tasty meal – crispy chicken or roast pork with crackling.
But it was when the dragon turned his attention to the villagers themselves that things got really bad. He would come into the village in the dead of night and find young girls, gobbling them up in one mouthful! Girls were much tastier than chickens or cows and each night the dragon came back for more. This was very upsetting for the villagers. So much so that they decided to go to King Krak and ask him for help.
“Our most noble king! Please help us. Not only has the dragon eaten all our livestock, he has now taken most of our daughters. We cannot allow this to go on!” said the village elder.
The King listened carefully. He was getting a little worried himself. The dragon was indeed getting hungrier and hungrier. And although King Krak was safe in his sturdy castle, he also had a daughter. What if the dragon decided that he wanted to eat her? The King couldn’t bear to think about it.
“I will send heralds to every corner of this land” said King Krak to the villagers, “with a message that whichever brave knight kills the dragon will not only get half my kingdom but will also receive my daughters hand in marriage.”
This was an attractive offer. Knights came from all around Poland, and from neighbouring countries to try their hand at killing the evil serpent. They came wearing armour, carrying armloads of weapons, on the fastest horses in the land. However, one by one they perished at the hands of the dragon. For not only could the dragon breathe fire, he could also fly. He just attacked each knight from the sky, making them all go up in a puff of smoke. No one, including King Krak himself, could sleep at night as the dragons reign of terror continued.
In the village lived a young shoemaker. His name was Dratewka. He was very poor, wore old, tatty clothes and had rough hands from working too hard. He was a king, bright boy who mostly kept himself to himself. For a long time, he listened to the stories of the dragon while quietly making his shoes. Then one day, when yet another brave knight perished, the young shoemaker decided he must do something. So, he visited the local butcher and asked for the carcasses of some sheep that had been killed by the dragon. The butcher wasn’t too keen to give them to Dratewka as there was little food left in the village and his wife was going to use them to make soup. However, the young shoemaker gave the butcher’s wife a new pair of red shoes and she happily gave away the old bones.
That night Dratewka took to bones back to his hut, and covered them with some leather that he used to make shoes. Then he stuffed them with a mixture of tar and sulphur (the stuff you put on top of matches to make them catch fire) and sewed them up. Then he put the carcasses on sticks to make them look like real sheep and started his journey to Wawel Hill.
By the time he got there, day was about to break. The young shoemaker knew he had little time until the dragon woke up and began his daily search for food. So, he placed the three ‘fake’ sheep in the entrance to the cave so that the dragon wouldn’t miss them and quickly ran back to the village.
Soon after the dragon woke up, stretched and yawned. He was just about to make his way out of his cave, when he saw the three silhouettes of the sheep at the entrance.
“Ha, ha!” he thought to himself “the villagers have brought me sheep so I won’t eat their daughters. That’s handy. Well, I’ll eat the sheep for breakfast and then I’ll fly to the village for a lunch of tasty Polish girls.”
So, without really looking at the sheep, the dragon opened his mouth and swallowed all three in one go. Then, he set off on his flight around the village. As soon as he was in the air he started to feel very strange. There was a burning in his throat, right through to his stomach. He was getting hotter and hotter. There was only one thing to do. He flew straight to the Vistula River and started to drink.
He drank and drank but the water didn’t seem the ease the blazing in his belly. So he drank some more. Slowly he started to expand, like a balloon, his stomach getting fuller and fuller with water. He didn’t care – he just wanted the horrible, hot pain to go away. Eventually he was so full of water that he looked like a massive scaly balloon, with water squirting out of his ears and his nostrils. Still, he carried on drinking. Then, suddenly….BOOM!
Everyone heard the massive explosion. The villagers stopped their work in the fields and the children stopped playing in the streets. Even King Krak’s daughter, the princess, who was brushing her hair in one of the inner chambers of the castle, heard it. No one knew what had caused it, apart from the young shoemaker. He carried on quietly with his shoemaking, with just a little smile on his face.
Only when the villagers found pieces of scaly skin all over the place did they realize that the dragon was dead. None of them knew what had happened. The King gathered everyone in front of the castle to find out who had conquered the mighty dragon. The princess felt very nervous – after all, this person would become her husband. She hoped that he was nice and just a little handsome. Only when the butcher told them that he’d given the young shoemaker sheep carcasses the night before, did the King ask for Dratewka to be brought before him. So the group of village boys ran to fetch the young shoemaker. Shyly, he told everyone the story of how he had tricked the dragon with ‘fake’ sheep full of sulphur that had caused him explode.
“You are a clever young man”, said King Krak,”you conquered the dragon without a sword or an axe but by using your brain. You surely deserve half my kingdom and the hand of my daughter.”
The princess blushed. She was relieved to see that the shoemaker was a nice-looking, gentle man. Dratewka was embarrassed by every one looking at him, but when he saw the beautiful princess smiling, he felt very happy.
The couple was married soon after and King Krak ordered a castle to be built on Wawel Hill for them to live in. It is on Wawel Hill, that the beautiful city of Kraków, named after King Krak, is situated today. And it all started with a shy, young shoemaker who slayed a dragon, using just his common sense.