Myth and folktales

123
When the devil came closer, the man asked him what he wanted. The devil 
replied that he was going to tear the wheels off the cart. The man said, “If you 
take the wheels from the cart, how are the wolf and the bear going to pull the 
cart and drive the logs home?” Then the two of them made arrangements that 
the devil would climb under the cart and would carry the cart on his back all 
the way home.
So the devil unhooked the wheels from the cart and played with them until 
they broke into small splinters.
After he had had enough of playing, the devil climbed under the cart and car-
ried all its weight on his back. The wolf and the bear pulled him and the man 
yelled from behind, “Giddy-up, Wolf! Giddy-up, Bear! Carry your load, Devil!” 
When he arrived at the castle, everyone was amazed that he had not only come 
home safely but had brought the wolf, bear, cart, logs and the devil as well.
84
Slovenian etiological or explanatory tales explain the constellation the Ursa 
Major mainly with the motif of yoked animals. Just next to the Croatian border, in 
the village Zamladinec, Matija Valjavec noted an entirely different tale about the 
origin of this constellation. The story about “the Dobrorad’s Celestial Wheels” says 
that God put Dobrorad, his wagon, his yoked mere and a foal, in the sky because of 
Dobrorad’s good deeds on earth.
Many other star constellations can be found in Slovenian folk narrative tradi-
tion. Among others, the Dragon (Draco), the Eagle (Aquila), the Swan (Cygnus), 
Monoceros, Capricorn, the Big dog (Canis Major) and the Little Dog (Canis Minor), 
the galaxy Milky Way and many other, about which people made up different folktales 
and imaginary explanations.
84 
This folktale was told by Anica Managátova on the 18th of August, 1975 (published: Matičetov 
1987; published in English: Kropej, Šmitek, Dapit 2010: 47–48).

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125
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH
People’s encounters with the supernatural world are described in numerous folk 
and belief tales that represent a document of people’s concepts of the structure of 
the world and the laws that define and determine it. Images of supernatural beings 
from this supernatural world are often unclear. They transform and blend into each 
other, and sometimes it is quite difficult to distinguish between them and even more 
difficult to define them with precision.
This part of the book focuses on the supernatural beings residing in nature such as 
demons, spirits, fairy-like beings, and other supernatural apparitions that people imag-
ined as inhabiting the world of twilight. Since they feature in a far greater number of tales 
than the myths about the supernatural beings akin to the gods and deities, it is impos-
sible to include all folktales about them in this book. In order to best present the many 
motifs discernible in the Slovene narrative tradition, only sample cases, and sometimes 
only summarized texts, have been selected. Stories about these supernatural beings are 
still being created, or are modified anew. Even today, human imagination produces new 
supernatural beings or subvariants of the existing ones, as is evident also from more 
recent publications on folklore. However, the basis of the Slovenian mythological tradi-
tion has been preserved in older published 
texts that may date as far back as the 17
th
 
century, and occasionally even earlier. The 
majority of this material was collected in 
the 19
th
 and in the first half of the 20
th
 
centuries. Milko Matičetov managed to 
preserve from oblivion some major tradi-
tions, particularly from Val Resia, as well 
as from the Slovenes living on both sides 
of the Slovene border with Italy. Although 
the narrative tradition is still alive to some 
extent, especially in remote areas, it is 
evident that what has been retained today 
are shorter genres as well as folktales and 
stories that are presented as true events 
experienced by one or more people. This 
has impoverished the once rich and diverse 
treasury of Slovenian folklore.
The Twelve Month of the Year, Hinko Smrekar 
(Literarna pratika 1914)

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126
the Giants
Giants and other large, supernatural beings were said to reside in forests, 
on mountains and in rocky caves or other remote locations. Many etiological or 
explanatory stories exist of how they built their castles by shattering rocks and 
pulling trees up by their roots. They supposedly handed each other tools from one 
mountain peak to the other. There is hardly a single mountain in Slovenia where 
the people have not described one of the peaks reaching to the sky as a petrified 
colossus, giant, ajd or ogre. The name ajd derives from German Heide, heathen, 
which means pagan.
THE GOLDEN, SILVER AND THE BRONZE AGE AND THE GIANTS (AJDI)
Slovenian folk tradition preserved the tales that the giants, as the first inhabit-
ants, at first lived only on the Golden Mountain, from where they moved to the other 
mountains as well. Because they were pagans, God sent a flood to destroy them. When 
the water ran away, the lakes were made and people came. Someday, the people will 
also die out and that is when the dwarfs will come.
Števan Kühar from Prekmurje recorded one of the versions about the beings who 
existed in the past, and about the beings who will live when we are gone.
What were the people who lived before us like and what will they be like when 
we are gone?
Before we existed, extremely tall and strong people lived in this world. There 
were the people of God the Father. That their powers must have been really 
great can be seen from this event.
In Tišina and in Martjanci, people started to build churches and also to put 
plaster on both of them at the same time. It happened that the woodworker 
from Tišina yelled out to the woodworker from Martjanci to lend him his 
hatchet. The latter was able to throw the hatchet with ease all the way to 
Tišina, although it is at least seven kilometres away.
They say that we are the people of the Holy Son, and that people of the Holy 
Spirit will come when we are gone, and they will be called palčki (dwarfs) 
because they will not be taller than the thumb on our hands and they also say 
that twelve of them will be able to work in one threshing floor (Kühar 1910: 
61; Kühar/Novak 1988: 151).

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