On the surface,it seems as if the mysterious, shadowy beings from folk beliefs are forgotten, but interest in them is not subsidingeven in the era of digital technology. He ended the siege that had gone on far longer than planned, and they left the battlefield. Theyre malicious and vindictive, and can curse people in any number of ways, causing death, barrenness and disease in humans and their animals. People therefore highly respected and loved them, but at the same time feared encountering them. However, they tend to cross this line more often than other creatures. if(typeof ez_ad_units != 'undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[250,250],'meettheslavs_com-leader-1','ezslot_0',116,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-meettheslavs_com-leader-1-0'); Veles is associated with the willow tree. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. Although fairies forbade him to marry, in his old age he got crazy and got married anyway. Perhaps most strikingly though, these fairies have animal legs hiding beneath their white dresses. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Also term vampirism is used to demonize individuals or groups because the vampires, according to some popular beliefs, are considered as demons and the personification of evil equal to Satan. For now, Croatia seemed like a good place to . Croatia Folk Costume - Etsy In some stories, Vedi are as tall as a mountain (which makes them difficult to miss). She has long unbridled blond hair that hangs freely down her forehead and back all the way to the ground. Sheep farmer Andre tells that while he was herding sheep he got sick and could not walk anymore, so he sat under a tree and started calling for help. The most impressive set of these hills is called Mordele, and it consists of three hills called the Grand Mordele, the SmallSt. Angel and the Grand St. Angel. In this article, I will talk to you about some of the most famous stories and legends that originated from the minds of the Croatian people. While the country naturally has dozens, if not hundreds, of legends and folktales, Ive put together five of their most famous tales. 30 Most Mythical Creatures From Folklore, Legends and Fairytales - Parade There are still many beliefs connected to fairies abilities and actions, such as them performing various arts. I'm looking for a source thats either full on croatian, or has more to it . Some fairies also live underground, underwater, while some dwell in clouds. A Kraken, a giant mythical creature from Scandinavian folklore, attacking a ship. These mysterious creatures were supposedly said to dwell in southeastern Europe's aquatic caves, deep inside the karst of the Dinaric Alps, which overlooks the Adriatic Sea. Before leaving, he cursed the people, calling them picoki (roosters), feathered heroes who fought their battles with roosters. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads. If you had been alert enough and took his hat off or caught him, he would be giving you gold coins every day. This Slavic deity represents all three major gods (Perun, Svarog, and Dazhbog) combined into one. Father Giorgio said: Look, trigon, there is Jesus Christ who saved us from hell and died for us. In the folk beliefs in Croatia (Dalmatia and Istria), people often mention trigas, or witches. However, no young man is wise and good enough to dare enter the cave. And join more than 6 thousand other people. Surprisingly, the townspeople resisted. It is also believed that moras are born in a red, blue or black placenta, which is a sign that a being with fantastic powers and omens is born. As far as the history and the origins of these legends go, there are many unanswered questions. They say that her power and her life lie in her hair. Among them are the bones of Brachiosaurus, one of the largest dinosaurs and land animals alike. It is believed that a malik steals and hides cattle, just to return it in a few days, but cows can no longer give milk. Whether an unfortunate traveler runs into him or steps on his trail, Orko would hurl them into the air and throw them miles away from their destination. Croatian Mythology - Iva Luli photography Throughout history, these places have evoked worship and admiration in Istrian people, and their imagination has created many legends about these places. Apart from the tale of fairies as Adams children, there are also beliefs in which fairies are created when there is sunshine and rain at the same time. Also known as the Big Grey Man, this 10 . Only an occasional man, especially in grace of the fairies, sees them sometimes, dancing in the field or sitting and weeping at a desolate cliff and a naked rock. (Ivan Kukuljevi). As lovely as fairy horse sounds, an orko is a malicious creature. But, wait until I tell you about Orko. He is, in fact, the last king to rule his native land before a period of anarchy, and eventually a union with Hungary. 3. In some tales, these creatures represented hill, forest or field demons, or souls of non-baptized, aborted, killed children, sometimes even small devils. Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet. On Picugi were excavated more than 500 graves from the period from the 11th to the 1st century BC, and even to this day it is uncertain to which nation these graves belonged. Croatian Folklore - Ancient Mythological Figures & Popular Legends 80 to 140 million years ago, or in the Cretaceous period, dinosaurs were present in the region of Istria. Apartfrom putting Istria on the world paleontological map, dinosaurs are probably responsible for the existence of legends about dragons. trigas were conceived or born on Christmas, Easter, or in the eves of big holidays. Interesting Legends Behind 4 Popular Tourist Destinations in Croatia These Croatian myths and legends are a terrific opportunity to understand the culture and traditions that make this Balkan country unique. Did we miss one of your favorite Croatian myths or legends? A short guide through traditional fairy beliefs. This myth was and still is a topic of discussion among Croatian people, politicians, and scholars. It is believed that maliks are to be thanked for good catch in fishing and that they bring treasure to those who manage to steal their red caps. The people in Istria used to say that all of them would have died a long time ago if there wasnt for their krsniks. Unfortunately, rare are the stories of such marriages having a happy ending, probably because, according to old rules of mythology, an eternal happiness between a mortal and a supernatural being is impossible. The village has changed, the country has changed, and most of all, the relation towards fairies has changed, so stories and dreams about them became less and less frequent. And so instead of a quick surrender, the Turks turned to starving them out, cutting all supplies. Similar to fairies, they also resorted to building several towers, or even whole towns, such as Motovun. Since no other ideas were forthcoming, the commander accepted her strange suggestion, and launched the rooster. With an uncommonly large wolf population within the Romanian forests, Pricolici are a very dominant part of rural folklore. The old writings about folk life often mention there are no peasants who dont believe in werewolves and that all of the older folk who spoke about them claimed to have seen a werewolf with their own eyes. About Old Croatian Gods and Myths | Blog - Lastavica The bravest of the villagers led by the prefect Miho Radeti chased and tried to kill the vampire by piercing his heart with a hawthorn stick, but failed because the stick just bounced off of his chest. Were Glenn and Katja! Tradition says that once upon a time in Istria, a dragon similar to a large lizard devoured many people, but when he wanted to eat the kings daughter, St. Jurajappearedand cut off his head. As is common in folklore, there is no standard set of characteristics, or names, and spirits or magical creatures are referred to by many names, often identifying their function or the place or environment of their activity. He was kindhearted and happy to help the tiny humans who lived near his home. The young man jumped out of the bushes and seized her fairy wings. There was also a small house, built of crystals, the floor was laid with pearls and violets, and the table in the house was always full of the best dishes in golden bowls. Cursing of Coprnice: The Good and Evil of Croatian Folklore The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". He ploughed a furrow from the lake to the ocean, and named it Dragonja. Boys watched very carefully not to thread on such grass, not to cross the fairies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". Surprised by this curious attack, Ulma-beg concluded that they must have much more food than they had thought enough to go pelting their enemy with it. Krsniks were the ones who kept them safe from vicious trigas, from droughts, hailstorms, illness and death. King Zvonimir was an actual person who ruled Croatia and Dalmatia [ 1 ]. He found them healthy and happy, but also scared as they saw God. Monsters such as vampires and strigoi have long been staples of horror movies, video games, and romantic novels targeted at teens. It seems the giants work ethics, one of their key qualities, was an inspiration to story writer Vladimir Nazor, who was the first one to bring them back to public memory. Zmey The Lamya's mortal enemy, the Zmey is a dragon which in Bulgarian myths is mostly considered to be a creature that helps people, rather than being a menace to them. I'm a maths tutor and a mechanical engineering student with a long time-interest in history. Nevertheless, God left them with their beauty and wisdom, so they kept living in woods, giving birth to their offspring. One of these lesser known legends is the myth of Coprnice.. To simplify, Coprnice are witches and warlocks, but mostly not the good kind.They are thought to be old women, or men, followed by the tragedies they inflicted on themselves, by meddling with dark magic . In the period between ancient times and the Middle Ages, a number of variants of beliefs in various supernatural beings were created. In the old tales he had already been known not only as helper, but also the one who knows where the buried treasure lies (a very frequent motif in the legends of Istria). At that point, the people of Peroj decided to make a horse walk across the graveyard to see what happens. A few moments later he saw before him a small donkey who said: Climb up. Clearly, Antonio was meant for more than the mortal coil. So, its something like uncle god? Veles is forever waging a permanent, cyclical war with the supreme god Perun. But who or what are these creatures who can today be seen in cartoons, movies, fairytales and novels? ins.dataset.adClient = pid; lo.observe(document.getElementById(slotId + '-asloaded'), { attributes: true }); Crowned in Solin in 1076, as a ruler, Zvonimir focused on the economic and cultural development of the Croatian state. Welcome to our blog! He beats children with birch branches or kidnaps them in his sack and takes them to his lair. LibGuides: Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian Languages: Folk Culture The stories about moras occur in Croatia all along the coast, from Istria to Konavle and in the Dalmatian hinterland, and it is often mentioned that people are the most certain that mora truly exists. We can recognize the ghost of the woods in features of the world famous Irish folklore trademark, the leprechaun, while the miners guardian and helper can be seen in the fairytale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. ins.style.width = '100%'; They're both old and ugly, have a hooked nose and a couple of missing teeth. The village priest, Giorgio, who had buried Jure sixteen years previously discovered that at night somebody would knock on the doors around the village, and on whichever door he knocked, someone from that house would die within the next few days. The meaning of vukodlak, however, means wolfs hair. But there are some really unique elements to their mythology as well. This is one of my favourite Croatian legends! Fairies are a favourite of Croatian mythology. Only then a young krsnik gets his final powers. It bites and beats people, makes children ill, and messes with childrens diapers to make them cry. On the other hand, malik is also responsible for a series of bad things that happen to people. And who were these krsniks? Their name, vila, is associated with clouds and in some myths they bring storms to destroy crops. Prints of these monumental animals were found in 1934 in Brijuni, and later on the peninsula Marlera near Medulin as well as on a small island Fenoliga and a small bay in Premantura. Antonio was a beautiful man so beautiful that every woman around him would fall in love with him, but he paid them no mind. var cid = '6354310426'; They were originally from Central Europe, Southeast Europe, and the Mediterranean. Striga are magical women who are either old and ugly or extremely beautiful. Eventually, the last bit of food that remained in urevac was a skinny little rooster. However, people dont consider it a big nuisance, but often say that a malik, turned into an animal, helped them on their way home. All the gold, shining in the sun, would immediately turn to a hard rock. After some exorcism prayers, Stipan Milai (one of the villagers), took a saw and sawed the head off the corpse. Another god that ancient Slavs worshiped was called Stribog. It is therefore not surprising there are numerous stories in Istria about a fairy falling in love with a boy and often having a baby with him. The rooster who crows with the break of down does not only represent the morning, a new day. The girl stole through the camp, and took a torch to the camps gunpowder stores. A Krsnik, a Witch, a Nightmare (or Incubus), a Dragon, a Fairy, a Malik, a Giant, a Vampire read what our acclaimed Croatian ethnologists have to sayabout them. After a short struggle, the peasant managed to run the stick through her. var pid = 'ca-pub-6145023705656770'; ins.dataset.fullWidthResponsive = 'true'; And so one day, when they asked him to help irrigate their lands by ploughing rivers into the ground, he agreed. Sometimes, the orko would be lighthearted and fun, but usually, it was a creature to be feared. So far I have stumbled upon Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources by A. H. Wratislaw, but of those folk tales only 3 are croatian. They are male, and considered to be brothers to Lamyas. Several days later, a great wind came, killing women who were doing laundry at sea. There have been many legends that survived through Croatian history. . In early morning when it rains these grasses have certain formations that give birth to fairies. window.ezoSTPixelAdd(slotId, 'stat_source_id', 44); Good, air fairies, always loved to help people. Slavic, Istrian and Croatian mythology is full of mystical creatures, both evil and good. The day after, when the villager was walking through the forest, he saw a black and a white dog fighting and, following the mans instructions, he threw a rock at the black dog, which ran away immediately. A fairys voice was an example of unconceivable beauty and it was believed that the one who hears a fairy sing will hear no other voice ever again. Nowadays, the collective memory of these beliefs is preserved in the ancient texts and oral traditions. She finds shelter with the dwarves, creatures from the borderline of the worlds who have never grown up. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. A baby born with such a mark is told to be a krsnik, the guardian from trigas, illness and other misfortunes. We cant imagine a better way to learn about it than through traveling so thats what were doing. Language/Croatian/Culture/Croatian-Folklore-and-Mythology There are also a number of myths around Croatia about how fairies come to be, since theyre all young women. Baba Yaga, also spelled Baba Jaga, in Slavic folklore, an ogress who steals, cooks, and eats her victims, usually children. Many of the mystical creatures described are peculiar to the Croatian culture, with dialogue between humans and creatures of the wilderness plus poetic verses giving each story a distinctive tone. So the werewolf doesnt actually have to turn into a wolf, but rather be demonic. However, after a certain age, other, older krsniks come for such children and young men and run them through certain initiation ceremonies. In Europe the myth of vampires is the most widespread among the Slavic people and their close neighbors (Albania, Greece, Lithuania). CROATIAN MYTHOLOGY. In some places, people believed that during the summer, a mother gave birth to a fairy on a beech branch and covered her in green leaves. He is known to chases bad children around with sticks or chains, hitting them . However, in order to do that, he had to talk her into it somehow. I'd want specifically Croatian, but I understand that a lot of those eastern slavic countries probably share a lot of folklore. These vicious wolf-creatures come out during the full moon, and in their older myths, lunar eclipses are actually the result of these wolves eating the moon. The villagers who saw him shouted: There he is, malik, running along the path wearing a small red cap., This was how malik turned into a little donkey and helped sheep farmer Andre, who later told everyone: Malik is the best!. Apart from peoples small helpers, Istrias legends and folk tales also speak about giants. After that moment, a krsnik becomes true fighter against trigas and evil, sworn to help people. Orko will get between peoples legs and transport them to some foreign land (like a desert or a swamp), and he would just leave them there. Ten Mythical Creatures in Ancient Folklore from Around the World Not only has this major discovery put Bale on the world map of paleontological sites, but the site near Bale is the only one of its kind in the Mediterranean. Kids today play with fairy figures, parents tell stories about them, but they surely dont know that fairies, in their ancient Slavic history, had once been considered winter demons, witches, spirits of the woods, or guardians of the natural world, symbols of fertility, and rulers of the skies and storm clouds. Another legend that stands halfway between reality and myth is the story of Mila Gojsali. The origin of his name Krsnik can be found in the word krst, meaning a cross. No matter how hard we try, we cannot tell our personal history, or history of a community, word by word, exactly how it happened. In some stories, they are living women, while in others they are wicked people returned from the dead. These creatures have reportedly been sighted in Croatia, Italy, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. A Slavic dragon is any dragon in Slavic mythology, including the Russian zmei (or zmey; ), Ukrainian zmiy (), and its counterparts in other Slavic cultures: the Bulgarian zmey (), the Slovak drak and arkan, Czech drak, Polish mij, the Serbo-Croatian zmaj (), the Macedonian zmej () and the Slovene zmaj.The Romanian zmeu is also a Slavic dragon, but a non-cognate etymology . On such occasions, fairies are born from certain flowerless grasses that blossom across the meadows, with roots similar to red onion. The nation was aware of the energy flows in the region andhave known how to channel and use these forces through megalithic structures. This book contained descriptions of medicines that could cure all the earthly diseases. Ten high hills about 100 meters high are located in the hinterland of Pore. from the village of Medvee near Kruevac in Serbia in 1725 in the report of the local doctor from Vienna at a time when Serbia is ruled by Austria (1717 1739). A krsnik is born in a white placenta, or, as some people used to call it, a white cap. Transformed into a fly, mora enters through keyholes, holes in doors and windows, and moras entrance to a room is usually marked by something breaking or falling down. They can forge weapons capable of cutting through iron and the hardest rock. According to the tales of old folk, a werewolf is very similar to a triga. Orko can only be reined with a lamb wool thread or a rosary, and the man who succeeds in it becomes fairy-like himself. ins.dataset.adChannel = cid; The fairy then asked him what she could do to get her wings back, and the young man said she had to marry him. Even today, youll find them proudly declaring themselves picoki, and the rooster is their town symbol. Then she asked the boy again to give her wings back, but he tricked her and said she would never get them back, in order to prevent her from escaping. window.ezoSTPixelAdd(slotId, 'adsensetype', 1); Snow White is old enough to become a woman, but is reluctant to leaving her girlhood (it is this liminal situation that makes her so beautiful). There were many temples and statues made in Triglavs honor (most of them located in modern-day Poland). I cover the travel and myth/legend posts. They love heroes, as well as smart, wise, tall and handsome boys. These myths have been passed on through generations and millennia through stories. Dog-haired man is among rare mythical creatures that can be related to real historical events. Todays science is nothing but an attempt at classifying random events into known and legitimized models. I studied some ancient mythology in uni, and I love learning about other places and cultures. They like good housewives, heroes and honest men, but if someone gets on their wrong side, they are even capable of killing them out of vengeance or hatred. Jure also appeared to his terrified widow in her bedroom, who described the corpse as looking as though he was smiling and gasping for breath, and would then sexually assault her. Her body is thin as a fir-tree, light as a bird, and she sometimes has golden wings. Some researches suggest that his name translates to father of all gods. On the other hand, some suggest that strig (from Stribog) translates to uncle. Let me know, and Ill be more than happy to add it. The model itself was made several years ago for a proof-of-concept mobile AR app about Croatian intangible cultural heritage dating mostly from Pre-Christian times. The people believe a werewolf possesses enormous strength, he scares people and casts spells on them, especially the relatives that got on the wrong side of him or those with whom he has a score to settle. They speak the Croatian language, which is the official language of Croatia, and one of the official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They have been an object of desire, beauty and luck. But the very concept of a vampire comes from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, where the myths about vampires were common and from where they were spread to Western Europe during the 18th century. Romanian mythology | Legends, Monsters & Mythical Creatures Earth fairies are almost always good, but can occasionally also become evil. Hi! The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". In these places a man can be recharged with good energy, food spoils more slowly, and some are deepening their inner senses so they can see and communicate with the spirits. container.appendChild(ins); When a person died a violent, unnatural, death or died in sin, unbaptised, it was believed they could not go to the other world immediately, but first had to spend some time in limbo or at the frontier between this world and the afterlife.

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