Twice ToldMarcin Bielski, Kronika polska (1597): Krok, the dragon under Wawel and Skuba the cobbler
- Language
- Polish
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
The paragraphs run from the middle of p. 30 to the middle of the page. The print is black-letter with many accent marks over a, e and o that are not letters in modern Polish (“ná”, “zá”, “ktory”); we have not reproduced them. The long s is written s. Spelling is otherwise as printed (“iamie” for modern “jamie”, “vczynił”, “ziadał”), and the margin notes “Wawel” and “Smok” are not part of the text.
Tento KROK założył Miasto nad rzeką Wisłą, a od swego imienia nazwał ie Krokow, potym KRAKOVV nazwano. Nie od Rzymskiego Grachusa, iako starzy pisali: bo tu nigdy nie byli Grachusowie z Rzyma: Ale to był Krok Słowieńskiego narodu, z potomstwa Czechowego ieszcze.
[…]
Przytymże Mieście KROK założył Zamek, na gorze skalney, rzeczoney Wawel. Tenże przeniost Stolec Krolewski z Gniezna do Krakowa: iz mu sie słusznieysze, y obronnieysze mieysce tam zdalo. Piszą naszy starzy Kronikarze, iz pod ta gora Wawel, był Smok wielki, ktory troie dobytka razem ziadał, także y ludzi kradł y iadł: przeto musieli mu dawać obrok, każdy dzień troie cielat abo baranow. Kazał tedy KROK nadziać skore cieleca siarką, a przeciw iamie położyć rano: co vczynił za radą Skuba Szewca niakiego, ktorego potym dobrze vdarował y opatrzył. On wyszedszy z iamy, mniemiał by ciele pożarł razem: gdy to w nim tlało tak długo pił wodę, aż zdechł. Jest ieszcze iego iama pod zamkiem, zowią Smocza iama.
Translation
This Krok built a town on the river Vistula and named it Krokow after himself; it was later called Kraków. It was not named from the Roman Gracchus, as the old writers wrote, because there were never any Gracchuses here from Rome. This was a Krok of the Slavic people, of Czech’s line as well.
[…]
At the same town Krok built a castle on a rocky hill called Wawel. He also moved the royal seat from Gniezno to Kraków, since the place there seemed better suited and easier to defend. Our old chroniclers write that under this hill Wawel there was a great dragon, which ate three head of livestock at a time and also stole and devoured people. So they had to give it a tribute, three calves or rams every day. Krok therefore had a calf’s skin stuffed with sulphur and laid in front of the den in the morning. He did this on the advice of a certain cobbler, Skub (printed “Skuba Szewca”), whom he afterwards rewarded well and provided for. The dragon came out of its den, took it for a calf and swallowed it whole; and as that smouldered inside it, it drank water for so long that it died. Its den is still there under the castle; they call it the Dragon’s Den.
Notes
The title of this edition, as the Wrocław copy’s library record gives it, says it was “newly published by Joachim Bielski, his son”. The printed text is the Kronika polska, not the world chronicle of 1554. The same passage is reprinted in the Warsaw edition of 1829 (volume pp. 79 to 81), which we read only in the OCR text.
“Za radą Skuba Szewca niakiego” is read as “on the advice of a certain cobbler Skub”: “Skuba” is the genitive of “Skub”, and “Szewca” (the cobbler) is genitive too. Later writers, Banaszkiewicz among them, call him Skuba, and the article does the same. “Mniemiał by ciele pożarł razem” is read as “thinking it a calf, swallowed it at once”, with the comma placed after “ciele”; the older punctuation leaves the clause open to another reading. “Aż zdechł” is “until it died” (zdechnąć is the word for an animal dying); the print does not say the dragon burst. “Przeniost” is the print’s spelling of “przeniósł” (moved). “Baranow” is the genitive plural of “baran”, a ram.
The passage cites “naszy starzy Kronikarze” (our old chroniclers) and names none.