Dinosaurs of Poland

Richard Freeman writes...

Miroslav Fišmeister, a friend of mine from Czechoslovakia, recently sent me some information on dinosaur-like entities encountered in 19th-century Poland. I have never heard of these creatures before and I think this is the first time the account has seen the light of day in English.

Here are the Rabki dragons. I'll have a look into books of legends from here as soon as I can.

ARNOŠT VAŠÍČEK
Planeta záhad, I. díl: Tajemná minulost, Baronet, Praha, 1998, ISBN 80-7214-157-0

I. Nestvůry z temnot dávnověku
Příliš mnoho důkazů (str. 28 a 29)

Planet of Mysteries, Volume I: Enigmatic past, Baronet, Prague, 1998, ISBN 80-7214-157-0

I. Monsters from the darks of antiquity

'One of the latest reports of the presence of unknown animals comes from Poland. In the area of Novosady dolina between the promontory of Beskids and Gorce a pack of strange aggressors used to trouble the shepherds since time immemorial. They were roughly the size of a human, they looked like lizards and they were bipedal. Usually, albeit very seldom, they were seen in the forests on the hillsides which are full of many caves. They hunted the stray kettle or sheep on the little guarded remote pastures. As for wolves which were among the most feared animals of those areas, the could easily kill them. One priest from Rabki owned a fur of a giant wolf which, together with his female partner, was unwilling to give up his prey – a stray lamb. The pair of wolves had their throats bitten through and it was apparent that they faced a most powerful opponent.

'A human was attacked only once by the mysterious monsters. One shepherd wanted to protect his herd and was knocked down and terribly bitten by one of the lizards. The existence of an unknown animal is confirmed by records from a local monastery and village chronicles record the testimonies of eye-witnesses. As it seems, the herd was getting smaller and smaller as time went by, until only solitary specimens remained. The last time the lizard was seen was in 1897.

'The info on the dragons of Rabki was being collected by a well-known researcher Mieczyslaw Wojcieszyn at the end of the 1920s. Some of the witnesses tried to draw the animal. They were simple highlanders. None of them read books or even newspapers, let alone knowing anything about paleontology. Despite that, they all made similar pictures of creatures which looked like carnivorous dinosaurs. Their survival into modern times, if we admit that the reports are true, was enabled by the special microclimate conditions of the area. The lizards are said to have been inhabitants of caves and holes dug near the hot springs. They survived the cruel winters, probably in the same way as some other animals, by hibernating. That is, they were only observed since spring to autumn, and their tracks were never seen in the snow.'