Beauties and Monster

Former High Mountain, which is near modern Yubileynaya square, was called Snake Mountain long time ago. According to legend a bloodthirsty dragon lived in its deep caves. In fact it was just an ordinary, so to say, a standard dragon, that were numerous in Europe of those times.

As it was traditional for all dragons, which respected themselves, ours acted villainously as well. It demanded a tribute, different viands, kidnapped people. Once a year it obliged surrounding villages to give out ten beautiful girls. They were chosen by chance. And one time the dragon came off a loser, the choice fell on the girl whose fiancé was a local hero. He utterly disliked that his fiancée had to be taken by the dragon and went to the reptile to solve the problem.  Gory and cruel fight took place? The legend has two variants of the end of the story. One of them is a real happy end. The warrior wins the despot, takes back his fiancé and they live happily for long time. Second variant is more tragic. In the battle with the dragon the warrior won but was mortally wounded. The crystal coffin with hero's body was put down at the bottom of river Svisloch right at the place where killed dragon disappeared under water. The legend says that during many decades huge ribs of killed dragon were seen above the surface when water-level went down. 

Translated by Ekaterina Ludvigovna Prokopovich, Odessa