The earliest known text that recounts the story of the Wawel Dragon is found in the Historia Polonica - a Latin chronicle of Poland's history, starting from legends dating to ancient and early medieval times – written by Wincenty Kadłubek (ca. 1150–1223). Wincenty was one of the early bishops of Cracow. He was a Cistercian, a lawyer, and a historian, who most likely studied in Paris and Bologna. He was a man of great erudition, and his broad knowledge of medieval and classical literature, as well as Roman and Canon law, was evident in his writings. The story of the Wawel Dragon was rooted most likely in some local folk tale related to pagan Slavic beliefs about an archaic chthonic creature of chaos and destruction: a winged serpent, living underground.
Wincenty wrote that in one of the caves (not specified) there lived a monster called 'holophagus', i.e.
