Been getting into reading about folklore the last few weeks. I’m part Polish and wanted to study some stories from Poland, and the one I kept finding was about the Wawel Dragon, a dragon roused when people forgot the ancient stories of a dragon in a cave under Wawel Hill, venturing into the cave to prove that it doesn’t exist.
In one version, a shoemaker named Krak or Krok saves his town from the terrible dragon living under Wawel Hill by feeding it a cow corpse filled with sulfur that can’t be smothered by water. The dragon, trying to calm the fire in its throat with the waters of the Vistula, is consumed by fire. Krak becomes king and his city is named Kraków after him.
In another, Krak is already king and it is either his idea or his son’s idea to slay the dragon with sulfur. In some of these versions Krak dies and his daughter Wanda is made the ruler of the Lechitic peoples. This story seems to be the older version, traced to the early Middle Ages, though both stories have roots in older stories and legends from other lands, showing Poland’s long history as a meeting place of the east and west.
I wanted the affect of this drawing to look like a wood cutting, with the man and the flag being very stylized, but set in front of a more realistic looking dragon. I feel like that’s what folklore is to me: a veneer of magic over the terror and beauty of being alive. Truth, from the corner of your eye.









