The Legend of Kanlaon

There once lived on the island of Negros a princess

named Anina who lived a very sheltered life.

One day, Anina overheard her father talking to the

kingdoms chief priestess. The priestess was frantic about
a report that they could not find a single maiden who was
unblemished.

Later, Anina asked her father what it was all about, and
the king finally broke down. There had long been a seven-
headed dragon threatening the kingdom, and the monster
could only be appeased if an unblemished maiden was
sacrificed to it.

In fear, all the women in the kingdom had cut themselves

to disqualify themselves from the sacrifice. Parents cut
their own baby girls so as to spare the infants from the
sacrifice. But the king and the queen couldnt bring
themselves to mar their daughters beauty, and so Anina
was the only remaining unscarred female in the kingdom.

Anina did not weep. Instead, she willingly offered herself

for the sacrifice. Fortuitously, on the day she was to be
brought to the mountain where the dragon lived, a man
calling himself Khan Laon appeared. (Khan in his
language meant a noble lord.) He said he came from a
kingdom far away in order to slay the dragon and spare
Aninas life.

No one believed the dragon could be killed, but Khan

Laon insisted that his ability to talk to animals would help
him. He asked the help of the ants, the bees and the
eagles.

The ants swarmed over the dragons body and crept under
its scales to bite its soft, unprotected flesh, while the bees
stung the fourteen eyes of the dragon till it was blind. The
largest eagle carried Khan Laon to the mountain where
he was able to easily chop off the seven heads of the
writhing beast.

In gratitude, the king gave Khan Laon his daughter Anina

to be his bride, and the people named the mountain after
the noble lord.

And that is how, according to the story, Mount Kanlaon

got its name. That it is a volcano is because of the spirt of
the dead dragon.