Graouilly: The Legend of the Dragon of Metz

An idyllic image from the scenic riverwalk in Metz, France. No dragons, alas! August 7, 2023.

Stories abound in Europe of creatures and critters that some valiant knight or religious figurehead—more often the latter than the former—came through and cleared out, leaving the beleaguered locals safe and sound and thankful.

Sometimes, the creature to be vanquished is a dragon.

In the French town of Metz, though, they took that dragon and what-ifed the story into something really grand.

The Metz Spin on the Dragon Story

What-if-ing is a technique in comedy and in fiction where you take an idea and punch up the possibilities to spin out as many ideas as you can come up with to expand it beyond the basic.

For the Metz dragon, they what-ifed the story as follows:

What if it wasn’t just a dragon lording over the town and punishing its denizens, but a dragon and a mass of snakes? And what if the dragon and the mess of snakes weren’t hanging out just anywhere but were hanging out—get this, seriously, this would be cool—in the medieval castle they had taken over?

Because yep, that’s how the people who crafted the legend of the Metz dragon, known as Graoully, decided to spin it.

Graouilly Vanquished by Saint Clement

The story’s beleaguered town suffered the menaces of its winged dragon and the dragon’s castle-full of snakes until a man now known as Saint Clement came along and banished them all into the river with the power of his religious robes.

A little too easy-peasy of an ending, if you ask me. They should have kept what-if-ing.

To celebrate his holy feat, the people of Metz now parade Graouilly in effigy down the streets of the town during its Mirabelle Festival the last weekend in October each year. (The Mirabelle is a type of plum.)

Graouilly also presides over the Metz football (soccer) team’s efforts in the local stadium, where they raise him for each team goal.

Dragon Sightings Aside, Definitely See Metz

Really, though, even if you aren’t likely to see a dragon other than at the soccer stadium in Metz, you really should see the town.

We visited on a day trip from Strasbourg, which gave us the chance to take a fun walking tour with the Metz tourism office and stop into the Centre Pompidou Metz to check out its latest contemporary-art exhibits.

And if you do see a dragon while in Metz, I want to hear about it.