The Tarasque: The Dragon of Provence Tamed by a Maiden's Ribbon
Between Avignon and Arles, where the Rhône runs broad and strong through the white limestone of Provence, there lived in a den beneath the river-bank a creature that the sober Latin of the medieval hagiographers describes with the relish of men who knew a good monster when they inherited one. It was the Tarasque : bigger than an ox, longer than a horse; head of a lion with teeth like swords; six legs, each armed with a bear's claws; the body of an ox sheathed in a turtle's carapace ; and a serpent's tail ending in a scorpion's sting. It lurked in the river and the wood by the crossing, sank boats, devoured travelers and horses, and defied every armed force sent against it—weapons broke on the shell; it crushed twelve lions, say the texts, and shrugged off engines of war. The terrorized town beneath its rock bore, then, the name Nerluc, the Black Lake. It bears now, and has borne for eight centuries, the name of its monster: Tarascon . And the manner in which the monste...