The Lindwurm Dragon
The 1583 fountain today in Klagenfurt's town square © Tourismusregion Klagenfurt am Wörthersee / Pixelpoint Multimedia
Announcing a new series on #Wahrzeichen (symbolic landmarks) in Austria! Each month we will feature a different famous landmark and we'll begin today in Klagenfurt, the capital of Carinthia #Kärnten.
Local legend tells of the mythical founding of the city in a marshy area plagued by a dragon, which made crossing the river Glan a "crossing of wailing" (Klage=lamenting/wailing, Furt=crossing/ford). Allegedly, the local duke built a tower for safety and hired knights to kill it by “fishing” for it with a chain and hook that connected the tower to a bull for bait. After it took the bait, the knights surrounded and killed the creature. The dragon and tower came to symbolize the city of Klagenfurt.
In fact, the earliest coat-of-arms from 1287 shows a mythical creature with the head of a wolf, the body of a bird, and the tail of a snake; this mythical creature embodied the wailing and fears associated with the dangerous water crossing but evolved into a "proper" dragon with four legs a few centuries later.
After finding the skull of a woolly rhinoceros in the 16th century, "proof" of the dragon and the legend was discovered, so the city commissioned the building of a fountain as a memorial. The fountain shown here was built in 1583 from a solid piece of slate from the local Kreuzbergl mountain. It still stands in Klagenfurt's town square today. A local #Wahrzeichen, it has been commemorated with special stamps three times since the founding of the Second Republic in 1945 - see the photo captions for more details.
A wood engraving from 1880 © Wikipedia
© Photo 1: Austria-Forum / Österreichische Post; Photo 2: Austria-Forum / Österreichische Post; Photo 3: Austria-Forum / Österreichische Post; Photo 4: Klagenfurt.at / Dr. Dieter Jandl; Photo 5: Public Domain