Myth and folktales

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In this statement, Matoha is identical to the Great, or the Old Mother. She is also 
mentioned by Hanuš Machal in his Nakres slovanskeho bajeslovja. In this work, she 
has been classified as “the forest woman”, therefore already in her transformed role. 
According to popular belief, Mokoš or Mokoška was later connected with the 
Great Witch (Lamia). Davorin Trstenjak wrote down the story about Mokoška – Lama 
Baba (Lamwaberl) – living in a castle in a marshy place that he had heard about from 
Rudolf Puff in Štajerska: 
Lamwaberl used to live in Grünau, a marshy place not far away from 
Šent Florjan Square, near the Ložnica that often overflowed its banks. 
Archaeological artefacts confirm that in the olden times the place had been 
cultivated. A lone farming estate is situated there now, but once upon a time 
there stood the castle of Mokoška, a heathen princess who lived in it. The 
castle was surrounded by gardens that were always green. She occasionally 
helped people but sometimes also harmed them; she was especially wont to 
taking children with her. At long last, God punished her. On a stormy night, 
the castle and all its gardens sank into the ground. But Mokoška was not 
doomed. She continued to appear, disguised in different female forms. She 
still carries off children, especially those who have been neglected by their 
parents (Trstenjak 1855: 206). 
The heritage that has been preserved about Baba depicts her as a frightening 
female figure who barred the road to anybody who was taking cattle to pasture for 
the first time, or was about to undertake a commercial trip, or went to school for the 
first time, etc. Anybody who chanced upon her had to donate something.
In Županje Njive under the Kamnik Alps, a legend recounting of such a baba 
living on Pasja Peč has been preserved to the present. Written down by Tone Cevc 
in 1970, the legend is connected with a folk custom bidding that every shepherd who 
took cattle to a mountain pasture for the very first time had to present Baba with a 
loaf of bread, a coin, or some other offering (Cevc 1999: 93–94).
The oldest flute in the world, which is 45,000 years old and dates from the end 
of the mid-Palaeolithic period, was found in Divje Babe Cave near Šebrelj above the 
Idrijca. The locals still tell stories about divje babe (wild women) who often helped 
the people with sewing, harvest, and other chores, provided that they are given food 
in return. The babe would descend their steep mountain slopes and collect food that 
had been left for them in the fields. If they received gifts, they drove away hail; if no 
gifts were forthcoming, they would summon hail instead (Turk 1997). 
Many Slovenian female supernatural beings adopted the role of the Zlata Baba or 
Pehtra and were connection with spinning, thread or yarn, and female chores such as 

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doing laundry or baking bread. As a sacrificial offering, people would leave for them 
a flock of wool, sheaves of flax or napkins. Since it was forbidden to spin or weave 
on certain days, midwinter deities were called torka (Tuesday), četrtka (Thursday), 
kvatra (Ember Day), and also rojenice or sojenice (the Fates) are connected with this 
mighty female deity who had power over life and death.
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Kvatrna Baba (Quarter Day woman, Ember Day woman) oversaw that quarter 
weeks, or the pagan feriae, were observed in March, June, September, and December; 
these commence with the first Wednesday after Ash Wednesday, Whitsuntide, Triumph 
of the Cross (September 14), and St. Lucia’s Day (December 13). During this time, people 
were forbidden to go courting, do female chores, bake bread, and leave their house on 
Saturday nights. They were required to observe a fast. Those who failed to obey these 
rules but roamed through the dark instead would suddenly behold the Quarter Day 
women disguised as shrieking, scowling monsters or as terrifying animal shapes with 
tousled hair. On quarter week nights, every vicious monster, witch, and ghost were 
believed to haunt people; this was also 
the time when treasures burst in flames. 
A Quarter Day woman would visit the 
women who did not stop steaming raw 
wool, doing laundry, or spinning, and 
punish them by boiling or scalding them, 
or by tearing them to tiny pieces. 
Spinners who were caught dancing 
or merrymaking after midnight were 
punished. Described as a white woman 
who was able to extend her body up to 
the ceiling, torka would enter the house 
and turn off the light. Spinning wheels 
started to spin by themselves, and did 
not stop until morning. When torka left 
the house the yarn was bitten to pieces, 
the thread filled with knots, and the 
spinning wheels broken. If the spinner 
was quick enough to climb to bed and 
her husband placed his right hand around her waist she was spared. Every night, the 
yarn had to be removed from the spinning wheel and the spinner had to make the 
sign of the cross above it. If she failed to do so, torka might appear at night, spin the 
spinning wheel with a dog’s paw, and frighten people. Equally dangerous was to fetch 
yarn from the attic late at night. A woman who did so might be gnawed to the bone 
32 
More about this see: Kropej 2008a: 182–186.
Kvatemberca (Ember Day woman), Damijan 
Stepančič (Kropej, Dapit 2008)

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and her bones scattered among other spinners. In Goriško, people used to recount 
how torka appeared at night and asked a homemaker: “Shall we garden tonight?” 
She was referring to the bleaching of the skein. If the house maker agreed, she was 
thrown into a cauldron instead of the skein, boiled, and eaten.
With the arrival of Christianity, Pehtra was replaced by St. Lucia, who brings 
light, and St. Gertrude (Jedrt) who spins flax and yarn, and whose attributes are the 
mouse and the spindle. On St. Gertrude’s nameday, the mouse bites through the yarn, 
signifying that spinning is no longer allowed. Pehtra’s magical and healing powers 
have been adopted by St. Walpurgis, whose nameday is on May 1, “when witches 
have the strongest power”. Some parts of Slovenia still know of the tradition about 
Mokoška the witch and Pehtra the witch; in Gailtall in Austria, for instance, people 
talked about Pehtra Baba’s crime, committed by the women who practised sorcery. 
According to folk narrative tradition, Pehtra Baba was also the leader of the “wild 
hunt”. People imagined it as a night-time procession of rushing and raging demons 
and departed souls during twelve nights 
around Christmas and New Year. The 
popular tradition of the wild hunt is 
based on the concept of the ghosts of the 
dead storming around at a certain time 
of the year. This tradition seems to derive 
from the belief, known in antiquity, in 
which the leader of the souls of the dead 
was Cybele. In the Norse saga, Snorra 
Edda (the wild hunt), which takes place 
on battlefields of the fallen warriors, is 
led by the Valkyries who are bringing 
slain heroes to Valhalla, the kingdom 
of Odin.
The tradition of Perta was particu-
larly popular in Alpine regions, like in 
this tale from Bovec:
A man refused to believe that the Pêrte existed. So on Epiphany he set out 
to await them. In order to see them pass he hid near the bridge across the 
Koritnica (by Bovec). But although he was hidden, the Pêrte knew where he 
was. As they were passing one of them hacked at his leg with a broad axe, 
crippling him. A year later, he waited for them again. The same Pêrta said: 
“I’ve forgotten something here last year; I have to take it back.” And he was 
well again (P-ov 1884: 303–304).
Wild hunt, Gvidon Birolla (Birolla 1979)

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