Twice ToldJan Długosz on Wawel hill and the dragon in its cave (Historiae Polonicae, 1711, Liber I)
- Language
- Latin
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
Three passages from the first volume of the eighteenth-century printing of Długosz’s Latin history: the entry on the hill in his list of Poland’s mountains (p. 33), and the account of what Grachus built and what then happened to his city (pp. 51 to 52). The print spells u and v as in the sixteenth-century manner (“vrbs”, “vt”), uses ”&” for “et”, and runs the words together at times; we have kept its spelling and normalised only the long s. Names are in italic in the print and are not marked here.
WAWEL, mons saxeus qui à Wisla fluuio cursu praecipiti alluitur, in quo & Basilica insignis Martyris famosissimi Beatissimi Stanislai, & prima ac praecipua arx Polonorum Cracouia, atque Regia sita est. Videntur etiam in diem hanc in monte ipso plures specus, aut cauernae, seu antra latebrosa, in quibus draconem & belluam mirae magnitudinis habitasse, & incolas loci magnis incommodis affecisse, literis & fama vulgatum est.
[…]
Inprimis itaque in edito colle, qui ab incolis Wauel appellabatur, & quem Wisła vndis suis alluebat, latam & sparsam planiciem in summitate habente arcem regiam construit; Deinde pro eius firmiore subsistentia, amplitudine & decore, vrbem haud procul ab arce ab eodem flumine Wisła fundat irrigatam, eique à suo nomine nuncupationem adoptans Grachouiam vocat.
[…]
Inter tot tamen suorum primordiorum grata & foecunda auspicia incommodo angebatur ingenti. Bellua enim insolitæ magnitudinis, Draconis aut Olophagi speciem habens, in antro montis Wauel, super quo castrum Grachus [sub arce] erexerat, cubile posuerat, quæ ad explendam suam esuriem, iumenta pecorum, aut armentorum præbita corripiens deuorabat, sed nec humanis differebat corporibus, verum quoties illius ventrem non reperti aut non dati pecoris diutius excruciasset rabies & fames ; toties sub clara luce diei ad mitigandum sui ventris ingluuiem horrenda rictibus ora trahens, & cubili suo potenter emergens, & valida iumentorum, atque boum corpora, siue adiuncta carpento, siue subiugata aratro inuadebat, suffocabat, vorabat, in quosque etiam homines sæuiens, nisi in totum refugerent, aluum suam illorum horrenda cæde explebat. Quæ execranda ingluuies & rabies adeò ciues Cracouienses terruit, afflixitque, vt de deserenda magis quàm de habitanda vrbe, propter tàm infestum vastatorem cogitarent. Mandato autem & decreto Principis Grachi, qui vrbis à se fundatæ molestiam ægrè ferens, ciuium ordinauit tria singulis diebus iumentorum iactari corpora, quorum satietate non hominibus solùm, verùm & cæteris animantibus præstabatur securitas, sed cùm hæc quoque onerosa magis Principi quàm ciuibus, qui post mortem suam vrbem desertam iri verebatur, conditio videretur, iactanda monstro corpora sulfure & caumate, parum igne contecta cera atque pice iussit corpora iumentorum impleri, & bellvæ exponi, quæ cum naturali & solita auiditate deglutisset, ab igne torrente, & flammis altius diffusis in interiora vrgentibus sensim collapsa & extincta est.
Occidente bellua & immani monstro, quod à quibusdam scriptoribus Olophagus intitulatur, Cracouiensis vrbs periculo grandi præter spem exuta […]
Translation
Wawel, a rocky hill that the Vistula washes in its fast course. On it stand the distinguished church of the most famous martyr, the most blessed Stanislaus, the first and chief fortress of the Poles, Kraków, and the royal castle. Even today several caves, hollows or dark recesses can be seen on the hill itself, and it has been spread by writings and by report that a dragon, a beast of wondrous size, lived in them and brought great troubles on the people of the place.
[…]
First of all, then, he built a royal castle on a high hill that the inhabitants called Wawel, which the Vistula washed with its waters and which had a broad, spreading plain on its summit. Then, to give it firmer support, size and beauty, he founded a city not far from the castle, watered by the same river Vistula, and gave it a name taken from his own, calling it Grachovia.
[…]
Amid so many favourable and fruitful omens of his beginnings, however, he was troubled by one great misfortune. A beast of unusual size, with the look of a dragon or an olophagus, had made its lair in the cave of Wawel hill, on which Grachus had built the castle. To fill its hunger it seized and devoured the flocks or herds put out for it, and it did not hold off from human bodies either. Whenever hunger and rage had tormented its belly for a long time because no animals had been found or given, it came out in broad daylight to ease its gluttony, dragging open its horrible jaws and rising powerfully from its lair. It attacked, choked and devoured the strong bodies of beasts of burden and oxen, whether harnessed to a cart or yoked to a plough, and it raged against men as well, and unless they fled altogether (perhaps a slip for “in tutum”, “to safety”) it filled its belly with their horrible slaughter. This cursed gluttony and rage so frightened and afflicted the citizens of Kraków that they thought more of leaving the city than of living in it, because of so dangerous a ravager. Prince Grachus, who took badly the trouble to the city he had founded, ordered by his command and decree that three bodies of the citizens’ livestock be thrown to it each day. By satisfying its hunger, they gave safety not only to men but to the other living creatures. But this arrangement also seemed more of a burden to the prince than to the citizens, and he feared that after his death the city would be left deserted. So he ordered that the bodies of animals to be thrown to the monster be filled with sulphur and tinder (the print’s “caumate”), lightly set alight and sealed over with wax and pitch (our tentative reading of “parum igne contecta cera atque pice”), and put out for the beast. When it swallowed them with its natural and usual greed, it was slowly brought down and destroyed by the burning fire and by the flames that spread deeper and pressed into its inside.
When the beast and huge monster, which some writers call the Olophagus, was dead, the city of Kraków was freed beyond expectation from great danger […]
Notes
Długosz (a fifteenth-century chronicler, according to Banaszkiewicz 2025, p. 2035) calls the ruler Grachus; the print shows no cobbler, no sons and no drinking in this passage. The editor’s margin notes include “draco ingens latitans”, “incolis onerosus” and “occiditur”, which are the editor’s and are not part of the text above.
In the second passage the italic river name is “Wisła” with a barred ł, which can look like “Wista”; the first passage prints “Wisla” in roman type. In “super quo castrum Grachus [sub arce] erexerat” the words “sub arce” are printed in italic at the edge of the column and may be a marginal note that runs into the line; we have put them in brackets and left them out of the translation.
“Caumate” is not a common Latin word; a second reader points to medieval Polish glosses that give it as tinder or kindling, and we follow that. “Parum igne contecta cera atque pice” is not secure: we read “contecta cera atque pice” as covered or sealed with wax and pitch, and “parum igne” as lightly fired, as a second reader proposed; the Latin is grammatically odd and may be corrupt. “Differebat” is read as “put off, held back” (differre), so that the beast did not hold back from human bodies; a second reader suspects “deferebat”, which would give nearly the same sense (“spared”). “Nisi in totum refugerent” may be a misprint for “in tutum” (to safety); we translate the words as printed. In “ciuium ordinauit tria singulis diebus iumentorum iactari corpora” the word “ciuium” can go with “ordinauit” or with “iumentorum”; we read it as “of the citizens’ livestock”, which is the reading that makes the sentence run.
The same print gives “Olophagus” as a name that “some writers” use, so Długosz does not claim it as his own word.