Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: The Dragon of the King’s City
Category: Dragon
The Myth
The dragon was a terrible monster that lived in a cave near a great city. It had a horned head and was so fearsome that the people were unable to defeat it. Every day the inhabitants were forced to give the dragon a human being to devour. If they failed to provide a victim, the monster would leave its cave and rage through the country, so violently that the people considered the daily sacrifice the lesser evil.
Eventually the king’s own beautiful daughter was chosen to become the dragon’s next victim. The king had promised that whoever could kill the monster would receive his daughter and the kingdom, but no one had yet been able to accomplish the deed.
A giant and a small tailor arrived in the city and offered to kill the dragon. The giant possessed enormous strength, while the clever tailor relied on his cunning. They took a gigantic hammer and a heavy pair of tongs and travelled toward the dragon’s cave.
They decided that the giant would enter the cave and drive the dragon out with his hammer, while the tailor waited outside with the tongs and would seize the creature when it emerged. But when the giant entered the cave and attacked the monster, the dragon suddenly burst out and snapped up the tailor like a fly, swallowing him whole.
The giant immediately pursued the dragon and brought his enormous hammer down upon its horned head. The blow crushed the monster’s skull, and the dragon fell dead. The giant then cut open its body and discovered the tailor still alive inside the dragon’s belly.
The tailor, however, feared that the giant would claim the king’s daughter and kingdom for himself. He therefore told the giant that he had deliberately allowed himself to be swallowed because he intended to turn the dragon inside out from within, like a glove. The foolish giant believed him.
The two men returned to the king with the dead dragon, each claiming the reward. After the king’s advisers failed to decide who deserved the princess and kingdom, the tailor proposed that the winner should be whoever could eat the most rice porridge.
The giant eagerly accepted, since rice porridge was his favourite food. A gigantic mountain of porridge was placed before them, and the two began eating. The giant devoured enormous quantities until he could eat no more, while the tailor continued eating without stopping. Finally the giant admitted defeat.
The tailor married the king’s daughter and received the kingdom. The giant remained behind, determined to discover how the little tailor had managed to eat so much. The tailor told him that during the meal he had cut open his own stomach so that he could continue eating indefinitely.
The foolish giant believed him. One day, while eating rice porridge, he cut open his own stomach and immediately fell dead. Thus the dragon’s death brought an end to the monster that had terrorized the kingdom, while the tailor’s cunning ultimately freed the kingdom from the giant as well.
Sources
“Der Riese Schneiderlein.” SAGEN.at – Traditionelle Sagen aus der Schweiz. Reproduced by SAGEN.at.
https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/schweiz/allgemein/riese_schneiderlein.html