Myth and folktales

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It is interesting that Maks Pleteršnik mentions that Desetnica, the tenth sister, 
can also denote one of the Fates. In Gorenjska (Upper Carniola), the Desetnica was 
actually called Rojenica (the Fate) and the Desetnik Rojenjak (Pleteršnik 1894: 435). 
Despite her gift of prophecy and clairvoyance, it is somewhat questionable to identify 
the tenth daughter with the mythological Fate (Rojenica); however, the connection 
between them (not an identification with Fate) cannot be ruled out completely.
Jakob Kelemina summarized his quotations taking in regard Pajek and the col-
lection of folk songs, which were published by Karel Štrekelj (Š I: no. 310–315; SLP I: 
no 51). In a note, Kelemina even cites Pleteršnik, saying: 
The Tenth Brother or Sister is a character of fairy tales; our story is a truncated 
fairy tale. According to this fairy tale style, in the second part of the story the 
girl should reach a place where she would find redemption and happiness! 
(Kelemina 1930: no. 239). 
If we include in our analysis the Irish narrative tradition, it can be said that 
Kelemina was right; Irish fairy tales of this kind usually end in marriage.
There was a king who saw a wild duck with 12 ducklings. He approaches the 
lake. The duck chases one of the ducklings away. The druid says that the 12th 
should be given to Deachme. The king becomes scared because he himself has 
12 sons, and chases the 12th away. At the same time, the Greek king sends 
away his 12th daughter. The young ones meet and get married.
49
In one of the Slovene fairy tales, a young musician meets the twelfth daughter 
and marries her (Albreht 1931: 3–19). But this happy end – at least in this Slovene, 
artificially concluded story – is an addition, or a fairy tale derivation of a legend.
France Marolt, who published the song about the tenth daughter in the journal 
Kočevski zbornik, was of the opinion that the beliefs about the tenth child were formed 
in the late Middle Ages in the vicinity of the castles in Gorenjska  (Marolt 1939). 
In his study Germanische Mythen in der epischen Volksdichtung der Slowenen. 
Leopold Kretzenbacher concludes that the tenth child represents kind of a ver sacrum, 
someone who must leave the native village and look for his or her niche in life else-
where (Kretzenbacher 1941: 99–101).
Ivan Grafenauer tried to explain the phenomenon of the tenth daughter by men-
tioning the characteristics of the patriarchal family, which did not grant its female 
descendants the same status as it did its male children. He limited his treatise to 
the phenomenon of the tenth female child, eliminating the tenth brother as a much 
49 
William Larminiene, West Irish Folk-Tales and Romances, London 1893; New Edition: 1972: 196–210.

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later occurrence. It is because of this that Grafenauer’s explanation is partial and 
questionable.
50
 He states: 
The greatest misfortune for a patriarchal family is to have no children; it is 
almost equally disastrous to have only daughters. The tenth daughter, the first 
one after the sacred number of nine, has to leave home to appease the gods. 
If there is no one else, the ninth daughter goes to war in order to replace her 
ageing father 
51
 (Grafenauer 1952: 34; Id 1943: 152). 
Nine sons also appear in the song Krvno maščevanje (Blood Feud, SLP I, No. 
9) in which the ninth son takes revenge for the death of his brothers and his father.
When the German translation of Irish fairy tales was published in 1956,
52
 Niko 
Kuret was the first to draw attention to the Irish heritage about the tenth child. Kuret 
concludes that these similarities can be explained only by oral or literary connec-
tion. He explains the name Deachma(dh) as an ordinal number: the tenth; as a noun 
denotes a tithe. If we talk about Daechma, however, to whom should be sacrificed a 
tithe, this denotes a person, probably a (female) deity (Kuret 1956: 14).
In 1958, when P. Schlosser published a tale about the tenth daughter titled Das 
zehnte Kind Milko Matičetov commented the tenth daughter from Pohorje: 
In an over half-a-century-old note from Fram made by Caf (Štrekelj I, 314), the 
previously mysterious end can now be easily explained. In it, the tenth daugh-
ter predicts to her mother: “You shall not see my death, but I will be standing 
by you when you die!” In the new variant from Radvanje, from 1910, this is 
possible since “they say that the youngest of the ten sisters is Death.” In other 
words: the tenth sister is no ordinary victim of the Death, but in the hereafter 
even helps the white lady. It is this mysterious creature (and not “Maia” as in 
Caf’s two notes from Fram, Štrekelj I, 314 and 315) who, during her travelling 
around this world, hands a ring to the tenth daughter as a recognizable sign 
for when she comes to take her (Matičetov and Bošković-Stulli 1956: 189).
Dušan Ludvik, who (like Kuret) connects the phenomenon of the tenth child 
in Slovenian heritage with the Irish narrative tradition, explains the Irish daechma, 
daechmadh as an ordinal number deriving from the Old Irish deich- (Old Cymric 
50 
Ljubljana 1952, p. 34. I. Grafenauer mentions the tenth child also in the collection “Peli so jih mati 
moja” (ed. by S. Šali), Ljubljana 1943, p. 152.
51 
Deklica vojak maščuje bratovo smrt (Girl Soldier revenges her Brother’s Death) (SLP I: no. 7); Deklica 
vojak na preskušnji (Girl Soldier Put to Trial) (SLP I: no. 8).
52 
Diarmuid mit dem roten Bart, Eisenach-Kassel 1956.

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