The Wawel dragon.

"THE WAWEL DRAGON"

      Once upon a time, in Cracow, there lived the king with his daughter, a beautiful princess. They lived in a castle, next to the Vistula river. The castle was  on a hill called the Wawel  hill. Everybody in Cracow was happy and they  liked  their king.

      One day a fire-breathing dragon came to Cracow. He found a cave at the bottom of the Wawel hill for his house. The dragon was huge and it was always very hungry. Every day he came to the fields and ate  the sheep, cows and other farm animals. Soon, people started  to put their animals in their houses so the dragon got hungry and very angry. The dragon flew to the house and he said “Give me your animals!” The people in the house were so scared that they ran  away. Then, the dragon breathed fire,  burnt down the house and ate all the animals.

The next day the people of Cracow went  to the king.           “Our master,  you have to do something” they said.          “Soon we will have no animals for the dragon”.                 The king answered  “The brave man who can kill the dragon, will marry my daughter and I will give them the half of my kingdom. Soon everyone in the kingdom knew the good news.

Many brave knights came from far away to kill the dragon but they couldn’t win. Soon there were no more brave knights to kill the beast.

“ What will I do now ?” said the king.                                   Just then, there was a knock at the door.                          “Enter” – said the king and the young shoemaker walked  in.                                                                                       “I will kill the dragon” said the shoemaker.                        “But you are just a shoemaker. How can you kill the dragon?”                                                                               “ I am only the shoemaker but I am clever and I will kill the dragon if you give me some wool and sulphur”.

The king gave wool and sulphur to the shoemaker. In the evening the shoemaker put the sulphur in the wool and started sewing. When he finished, it looked  like a sheep.  At night he put it outside the dragon’s cave.

When the dragon woke  up, he was hungry. He went outside and saw the sheep. “Oh, breakfast for me” he thought . He ate the sheep. The sulphur went into his tummy. The dragon became  very thirsty. He ran to the river, he drank  and drank but he was still thirsty. So he drank more and more and got bigger and bigger until … “BANG”                                                                                             The dragon burst like a big balloon.

“Hurray !!! Bravo for the clever shoemaker” shouted the people of Cracow .

The shoemaker married the princess and the king gave them the half of the kingdom.                                            And all the people of Cracow lived happily ever after.