Tradition / Region: Latvian mythology Alternate Names: Putiene Category: Dragon
The Myth
Putis is a fire-breathing, many-headed dragon in Latvian folklore that lives in or near water. When tamed, it brings wealth to a household by stealing food and money from others at night and carrying them through the air while appearing as a flying flame. A domesticated putis lives in farm outbuildings, must be fed blood and given sacrifices, and can be killed with a silver bullet.
According to legend, a farm owner may obtain a putis by buying one or by selling their own soul, or the soul of someone close to them, to the devil or to the putis itself. Once bound to the household, the dragon steals goods from neighbors and brings them home to its master.
However, the price of keeping such a creature is severe. The master of a putis is said to die in agony and find no peace after death, unable to receive God’s blessing.
Tradition / Region: Romanian Mythology Alternate Names: – Category: Dragon
The Myth
A shepherd from Minarken once told how his companion Simon proved himself against the dreaded Smo.
In those days, the young men of the village often kept watch over their masters’ flocks at night. They would gather around their fire in the hills, laughing, boasting, and telling stories to pass the long hours.
One night Simon suddenly said, half in jest, “Do you think I could summon the Smo if I saw him flying past?”
The others laughed, but wagers were quickly made. Bottles of brandy were promised if he could do it, and Simon agreed.
Not long afterward, a flash of lightning appeared in the western sky. Soon the men saw what they feared most — the fiery Smo drawing nearer. Sparks streamed from it as it flew high through the darkness.
Simon sprang up. From his belt he drew the small iron fork he carried beside his knife. He swung it three times above his head and hurled it into the ground before him. Then he shouted across the mountains:
“When I call you, you must follow me and come to this place!”
Far away, the blazing dragon suddenly turned and came snarling toward them. At Simon’s command it halted before him.
“Where are you going?” Simon demanded.
With a dull voice and fire pouring from its mouth and eyes, the Smo answered, “I go to my sweetheart in the village below.”
“She is mine, not yours,” Simon declared. “You will stay here as long as I wish.”
And the spirit obeyed him.
For a long time Simon held the fiery dragon there beside the fire while the others watched in fear and amazement. Only toward morning did he lift the fork again, cast it once more into the ground, and command:
“Go back where you came from — but you shall not go to my village.”
At once the Smo rose into the air and drifted westward, slowly vanishing toward the dark horizon. By then the roosters were already crowing and the sky over the mountains was turning pale.
For when dawn comes, the spirits of the night must withdraw, and the world belongs again to humankind.
Tradition / Region: Romanian Mythology Alternate Names: The Kronstadt Lindworm; Peak Dragon; The Mountain Linddur Category: Dragon
The Myth
Not long after the town of Kronstadt was founded among the mountains, people said a dreadful dragon lived in a small cave high on a peak above the settlement. The creature, called the Linddur, would fly down into the valley whenever hunger drove it, devouring both people and animals and filling the region with fear.
One day the son of the town judge, a student preparing to preach, went outside the walls to memorize his sermon. Near the city wall he found a quiet place and began to recite his words aloud. He spoke so loudly and earnestly that the Linddur heard him from its mountain cave.
The dragon swooped down before the youth could escape and swallowed him whole.
Grief spread through the town, for the young man was well loved, and his parents were overcome with sorrow. While they mourned, a stranger came before the judge and said, “Strength cannot defeat such a beast, but cunning may. If we act quickly, your son may yet be saved.”
The judge promised him a rich reward. The stranger took a calfskin and filled it with quicklime. He laid it out in an open patch of grass near the castle and hid nearby, bleating like a calf.
Hearing the sound, the Linddur descended at once. It saw what it thought was prey and devoured the calfskin greedily. Soon afterward it was seized by a terrible thirst and flew to the nearest water to drink deeply.
But the quicklime within it drank the water faster still and burned with such heat that the dragon’s body swelled and burst apart. When the beast split open, the student was found still alive inside and was rescued.
In gratitude, the judge rewarded the clever stranger with many gifts. And to remember the deliverance, the image of the Lindworm was set upon the wall that leads from the eastern corner of the city up toward the archer’s battlement, so that all would recall the dragon that once haunted the peak above Kronstadt.
Tradition / Region: Romanian Mythology Alternate Names: The Dragon of Wendchenberg; The Rock Dragon; Fire Dragon of Klein-Logdes Category: Dragon
The Myth
In the hills near Kreisch, high on the Wendchenberg, there lies a rocky cleft known as the Zwergelloch. Long ago, people said a terrible creature lived there, called the Zwergel.
The villagers feared it greatly. To keep the monster from descending upon them, they were forced to offer it a human sacrifice every week. Only by feeding it could they keep it in its rocky lair and spare the village from destruction.
The same creature was also seen in other places. Once, it flew over Klein-Logdes, breathing fire as it crossed the sky. Yet whenever the flames touched the earth, they died at once, as if the ground itself would not burn.
The Zwergel was not only a devourer but also a spirit that could seize human bodies. It once possessed a Wallachian maid, who wasted away under its power. Her mother, in desperation, laid her out on a bier as if she were already dead and called neighbors and relatives to mourn her. Through this false funeral, the creature was driven out, and the girl was freed.
But in the mountains, people still spoke of the cleft in the rock and of the being that once lived there — the Zwergel, the dragon that demanded flesh and could enter the living as easily as it flew through the sky.
Tradition / Region: British Mythology Alternate Names: The Mordiford Dragon Category: Dragon, Wyvern
The Myth
Near the village of Mordiford, where the River Lugg meets the River Wye, there once lived a dragon whose story is closely bound to a young girl named Maud.
Maud was a child who longed deeply for a companion of her own. One day, while wandering in the woodland near her village, she discovered a small, bright creature among the flowers. It had a narrow snout and tiny, translucent wings, and it moved with curious life. Delighted, Maud took the creature home, believing she had finally found the pet she desired.
Her parents, however, recognized the truth at once. The creature was no harmless animal but a young wyvern, and they warned Maud that it would bring danger upon the village. They ordered her to return it to the forest immediately. Though she pretended to obey, Maud could not bear to part with it. Instead, she hid the wyvern in a secluded place in the woods and secretly returned to it each day.
Maud fed the creature milk, played with it, and watched as it grew stronger, learning to stretch and beat its wings. Month by month, it grew larger, its body taking on a deep emerald color, its wings becoming broad and powerful. What had once been small enough to cradle soon became something vast and dangerous.
In time, the dragon’s hunger changed. Milk no longer satisfied it, and it began to crave meat. It descended upon nearby farms, killing sheep and cattle. When the farmers tried to stop it, the dragon turned on them as well, discovering a taste for human flesh. The countryside fell into fear.
Maud continued to visit the dragon, begging it to stop its violence. The beast ignored all pleas. Though it spared Maud—its first and only friend—it killed everything else in its path, until the people of Mordiford could endure no more.
At last, a man from the Garstone family armed himself and went into the forest to confront the dragon. When he found it, the wyvern unleashed fire upon him, but he pressed forward and drove his weapon through its throat, killing it where it lay among the trees.
Hearing the struggle, Maud rushed from the forest. She arrived too late. The dragon lay dead, and Maud fell beside it, overwhelmed with grief for the creature she had raised and loved.
Thus ended the dragon of Mordiford—born of wonder, nurtured in secrecy, and destroyed when its nature could no longer be contained. The tale remains a reminder that affection alone cannot tame what is meant to grow beyond human control.
The Raróg is a being of fire, most often seen as a flaming falcon or hawk streaking across the sky. It is not a creature of nests or forests, but one bound to heat, flame, and the upper reaches of the world. When it moves, it may blaze like a living ember, spiral through the air like a whirlwind, or descend suddenly in a flash of fire.
Some traditions tell that the Raróg may be born in an unusual way. An egg kept warm upon a household stove for nine days and nights can hatch into the spirit. Once it comes into being, it does not remain fixed in shape. At times it appears as a fiery bird, at others as a dragon-like form, a small humanoid spirit, or a spinning column of flame. Like fire itself, its nature is unstable and ever-changing.
The Raróg is said to dwell at the crown of the Slavic world tree, where it guards the entrance to Vyraj, a warm and radiant realm associated with life, renewal, and the seasonal flight of birds away from winter. From this height, it watches the boundary between the human world and a distant paradise beyond decay and cold.
In some regions, particularly in Polish folklore, the Raróg appears in a smaller and gentler form. It is described as a tiny fire-bird that can be carried in a pocket and brings good fortune to the one who possesses it. Even in this form, it remains a creature of flame, closely tied to later legends of the Firebird, whose feathers continue to glow long after being plucked.
Across all its tellings, the Raróg endures as a living embodiment of fire itself — swift, radiant, and dangerous, forever moving between worlds in flickers of flame.
