Myth and folktales

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other places in Slovenia they were named gorski mož, in Dolenjska they were called 
hóstnik (forest man), in the Šaleška dolina podzemeljski mož, in Bela Krajina they 
were also called vilenják, in Pohorje lesni mož, and in Bohinj podlesni mož. 
The dívja žéna (wild woman) was most often called dívja bába or dívja dékla, in 
Primorska divjačésa, dujačesa, krivopéta, krivapéta, krivopétnica.
The people imagined them as having a huge stature covered in hair or even in 
moss. Matevž Ravnikar-Poženčan, who was gathering folk tradition from Gorenjska 
in the 19
th
 century, described pogorni mož and pogorna žena like this:
Pogorni mož, pogorna žena
This giant forest spook is all covered in moss. If s/he sees a man s/he laughs 
out so loud that everything shakes. The woman is smaller than the man.
90
 
Ravnikar-Poženčan also wrote about the wild man Silvanus, who advised people 
when to plant:
silvanus
This one walks in the forests. Once, it came to the Vidniče manor house in 
the Cerklje parish to some farmer and advised him to plant in the worst cold, 
in the snow: “Farmer, plant fava beans!” The wild man picked up the seeds, 
which rolled up in his direction and ate it. The farmer had a very beautiful 
fava bean crop on that field ever since because he followed his advice.
91
Silvan or Silvanus is the Italic god of forests, and it was an important deity in the 
Roman province of Illyria. The Roman people associated it with Mars, while it was linked 
to Pan in Istria (Stipčevič 1974, Šašel Kos 1999: 32). A similar tradition is still alive among 
the Rhaeto-Romanic population and among the Ladin-speaking inhabitants of the 
Dolomite region in Friuli as well, where he was also named Salvan. The people imagined 
him as a very hairy wild man, sometimes short and at other times tall, who has the abil-
ity to become invisible. Silvan is believed to be the protector of farmers and their herds.
THE WILD MAN PASSES ON HIS KNOWLEDGE ON PEOPLE
Although the wild man helped people and offered them advice, also about when 
to sow and when to plant, and offered a helping hand, brought back any lost animals 
and game to the hunters, people still tried to get rid of him, because he stole their 
90 
Manuscript of Matevž Ravnikar-Poženčan, Archive NUK: MS 483: XI.
91 
Manuscript of Matevž Ravnikar-Poženčan, Archive NUK: MS 483: XI.

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bread, milk, cattle, the crops they gathered, and even people. Some tales describe 
how people made a trap for this wild man, got him drunk, gave him boots in which 
he slipped and fell, tried to chase him away with a bear or gave him a rifle and gun-
powder, claiming it to be a pipe and tobacco. (Šašelj 1906: 213–215)
Once people catch the wild man, he tries to redeem himself by disclosing a secret 
and offering knowledge only he possesses. The wild man shows them the location 
of ore, explains what to do with rennet, and tells them how to keep epidemics and 
other diseases away. But he never discloses all the secrets it has, but keeps some to 
himself. When the people set him free, he makes fun of them, as if to say that they 
has a bird in their hands but they did not take advantage of it, and that they could 
also ask it many other things, such as, for example, why is there a cross in a walnut.
The motif of the wild man, who teaches people various skills and passes on them 
the knowledge he has, but in the end it replies curtly that he could teach them much 
more if only they knew how to treat him, occurs frequently in folktales. This was 
established by Ivan Grafenauer (Grafenauer 1952–1953: 124–153, Grafenauer 1954: 
130–133, Grafenauer 1958: 49–57), who noted that the divji mož (wild man) and 
the gorni mož (mountain man) are often mistaken one for the other and sometimes 
the other takes part in the tale with the same motif. Grafenauer also presumes that 
this tradition was in its origins connected with the wild man or the forest man, and 
not with the dwarf-like mountain man (gorni mož). He adds that the tales from 
Graubünden, which belong among the oldest Rhaeto-Romanian cultural layer, 
describe this fairy creature, drunk with wine, as a tiny, three-and-a-half feet tall, but 
very robust little man. A tale from Tyrol, with origin found among ancient Alpine 
people and Valachs describes a wild man called Salvanel, a master of a flock of sheep, 
who at night secretly joins the shepherds, and drinks their milk, and teaches them 
how to make butter and cheese in return. 
Ivan Grafenauer finds the origin of the motif of getting a mythical creature 
drunk in the myth about the king Midas of Phrygia. He compares it also with the 
myth about satyr Silenus – the teacher of Dionysus (Bacchus) – from Asia Minor. 
Grafenauer also linked this legend with apocrypha found in Talmudic legends, such 
as Salomon and the Asmodeus (Ašmedaj) and “Building the Master’s House”. And he 
also drew some parallels with ancient Indian Vikramaditya mythology (Grafenauer 
1952-1953: 144–149), and later with the medieval German poem about Salomon and 
the intoxicated and captured dragon. He also compares this motif with the Serbian 
fairy tale about the intoxicated and captured elephants (Grafenauer 1958: 57). 
Ivan Grafenauer assumed that such tradition has cultural and historical back-
ground from the days when the native population who lived in the hills passed the 
knowledge about how to make cheese to the newly settled population in the Central and 
Eastern Alps, since making cheese out of fresh milk is not of ancient Indo-European 

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