According to the Asturian mythology, “cuélebre” is a dragon or winged serpent that watches fantastic treasures. It has a poisonous breath, whistles strongly, and lives in underground caves.

It is a dangerous dragon: it feds on people and animals, it has hard fins and never stops growing in size. When it ages, the cuélebre grows so much that it exceeds the capacity the land can hold. For this reason, it must fly to the Cuajada Sea, which is filled with treasures and cuélebres that take care of each other.

SIMILARITIES WITH GREEK MYTHOLOGY

The legendary cuélebres resembles the dragons from Greek mythology. Those dragons used to watch golden apples at the garden of the Hesperides.

Also these dragons display bloodline relation with the ones found at the stories of Jason and the Argonauts. The Golden Fleece was protected by a frightful dragon that never slept.

GEOGRAPHY AND THE CUÉLEBRE

Cuélebres left their “signs” in the Asturian geography. The tales of cuélebres served to baptize different geographic regions from this Spanish community: the Cave of the Cuélebre, the Well of the Cuélebre, the Ramada of the Cuélebre, and the Braña de Valdecuélebre.

One of the most popular legends carried out by the Asturian dragons is the one about the “big cuélebre that terrorized the monastery of Santo Domingo”. The convent, located at Oviedo, was knocked down by a serpent-dragon that fed on monks.

But one of the friars devised an effective strategy for their salvation: it left a bread filled with pins near the dragon’s lair and the cuélebre died immediately after eating it.

Other myths about cuélebres speak of flying dragons that, while migrating to the sea, their wings got stuck on tree branches. After many days being immobilized, they died of hunger.

The Asturian art has represented this mythological animal at the Oviedo Cathedral, the church of Santa Maria de Celón, San Emeterio de Sietes, among other buildings from the sixteenth century.