Fairy tales and legends - The Giant Snake of Güssing

On the meadows of the slopes of the Güssinger Schloßberg once grazed many sheep. One day the shepherd noticed that a sheep had disappeared. The next day he inexplicably lost a second sheep, and in the following days the departure of other sheep was repeated. These daily losses prompted the shepherd to examine the hard to reach rocks of the slopes. To his dismay he discovered a cave where a snake-like monster had just eaten a stolen sheep. The shepherd hurried to the village and told the farmers about his experience. Ten men, armed with long-stemmed pitchforks, decided to kill the monster. After three hours of heavy fighting, the heroic men succeeded in killing the monster. The giant snake was so large that the largest wagon in the village had to be covered with four oxen to carry it away from the cave.

Source: Anton Mailly, Adolf Parr und Ernst Löger, Sagen aus dem Burgenland, Wien/Leipzig 1931, Nr. 22, zit. nach Sagen aus dem Burgenland, Hrsg. Leander Petzoldt, München 1994, S. 247.