Twice ToldMarcin Bielski, Kronika wszytkiego swiata (1554): Grakus and the dragon under Wawel
- Language
- Polish
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
One paragraph from the page headed “Trzecie Księgi, List 234”. A strip of paper pasted down the left of this copy hides the first words or letters of five lines of the paragraph, and brown pen underlining runs through the lower lines. Words in square brackets are our readings of damaged letters, and “[hidden]” marks a stretch we could not read. The print is black-letter with accent marks over a, e and o that we have not reproduced.
Piszą Kronikarze Polscy, iz pod tha gora Wawel, na ktorey zamek Krakowski yest, Smok wyelki w yamye na ten czas był, ktor[y … hidden … k]yedi głodzyen był ludzi kradł y pozyrał a parą smrodliwą zabiyał: przeto mu[sieli?] [hidden] dawać obrok kazdi dzyen koleya po troygu dobytka, az Grakus Ksyaze re[hidden]zał w wywnatrzonym cyelecyu siarki, smoły a saletry z ogniyem przy[hidden]adac, zaprawiwszy, a przeciw yamye yego położyć, kthory gdy vzrzał mnimaye[hidden]cyele pożarł: A gdy w nim tlało pił wode az sye rospukł.
Translation
Polish chroniclers write that under this hill Wawel, on which the Kraków castle stands, there was at that time a great dragon in a cave. [Some words are hidden here.] Whenever it was hungry, it stole and devoured people, and it killed with its foul breath. So [they had to] give it a ration of food every day in turn, three head of livestock, until Prince Grakus [ordered?] a hollowed-out calf prepared with sulphur, pitch and saltpetre and fire [hidden], and laid in front of its cave. When it saw it, thinking [hidden] a calf, it devoured it. And while that burned in it, it drank water until it burst.
Notes
This is the printing whose title, in the library’s record, runs to the year “1554”. The paragraph is in the part on Polish history. Krakus (Krok) is given here in the form “Grakus” in the dragon sentence, and the page names him both ways (“Krakus / Krok” at the head of his entry).
“Cyelecyu” is read as the locative of “cielę” (calf) and “w wywnatrzonym” as “in a hollowed-out” (modern “wy-wnętrzonym”). The print’s “ł” (l with a stroke) looks like a “t” at this size, and we have read it as “ł” wherever the word needs it (“był”, “kradł”, “pił”, “rospukł”, “smoły”); “yedi” in the first hidden stretch is read as “[k]yedi”, “when”. The word “przy[hidden]adac” is broken across the hidden strip and we read nothing from it; “zaprawiwszy” is “having prepared”. The hidden stretches are a few letters at the start of each line, so they cannot hold a sentence about an adviser; “re[hidden]zat” after “Grakus Ksyaze” is probably a verb of ordering, and we have read it that way in the translation, in brackets. The words that can be read name no cobbler and no adviser.
In the margin the print has “Smok pod zamkyem” (dragon under the castle).