Smok Wawelski, Kraków

Smok Wawelski is the bronze dragon sculpture beside the exit from the Dragon’s Den, at the foot of Wawel Hill. Perched on its limestone boulder above the Vistula, this six-metre figure turns an old Kraków monster into a very physical presence. Sculptor Bronisław Chromy completed it in nineteen sixty-nine, and it was placed here in nineteen seventy-two.

An early plan would have set the dragon partly in the river, but debris carried by the current would have collected on it, so the riverside boulder became its home instead. Notice the dragon’s open mouth: in the spring of nineteen seventy-three, Feliks Prochownik installed the gas-and-electric mechanism inside that lets it breathe flame. Natural gas fuels the fire, and messages sent by text can trigger it.

As Kraków legend has it, the creature lived in a cave beneath Wawel and preyed on the townspeople. A cobbler called Skuba defeated it with a lamb filled with sulphur; the dragon then drank so much Vistula water that it burst. The oldest surviving written version, from the twelfth century, gives the victory instead to Krakus II and Lech II, sons of King Krak.