Myth and folktales

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Carlo Ginzburg questioned a close connection between the “older” Kresnik, 
the ruler of the earthly world, and the “later” one, the protector of territory. Along 
with some other scholars, he found parallels in Italian, particularly Friulian, and 
Hungarian traditions about the benandanti only with the “ecstatic Kresnik”. 
According to Ginzburg, this lore preserves the memory of ecstatic cults that are 
somehow connected with ancient Eurasian shamanism (Ginzburg 1989: 130–160).
Maja Bošković-Stulli has researched the lore on the Kresnik in Croatia, which 
has been preserved particularly in Istria and Dalmatia. She has ascertained that the 
Croatian kresnik has principally the role of protector. Believing that the kresniks were 
mainly adversaries of the štrigoni (sorcerers), Bošković-Stulli drew a parallel between 
them and the South Slavic moguti or zduhači, beings whose soul at times escapes to 
roam other worlds (Bošković-Stulli 1960: 292).
In Istria people believe still today that while the person who is kresnik is sleep-
ing, his “consciousness”, “his breath” or his “other body” – that is, his metaphysical 
body that cannot be seen – travels around. If his physical body is turned around, his 
metaphysical body cannot return, and the person dies (Lipovec Čebron 2008: 133). 
They still tell tales about kresniki fighting the sorcerers in the form of a black and a 
white dog, such as this:
One day my uncle went with his donkey to a mill beneath Črnica. They were 
grinding grain until night fell. It was summer, and there was little water. So 
when he was returning it was already late at night. As he was nearing Dvor, 
the donkey started to strain its ears. When uncle reached his field he saw two 
dogs, one black and the other white, running toward him. He thought there 
were hunters with them; he thought it was already dawn. So he took a stone and 
hurried behind the white dog. The dog bared its white teeth, growled, and ran 
away. When uncle reached his home it was still night, but it seemed to him that 
it was already morning. It was about two or three hours after midnight. People 
had no watches in those days, not like today when we constantly carry a watch.
They say the white dog is a kresnik; he would help and protect and defend 
you. The black dog is a sorcerer who, if it weren’t for the white one, would 
slaughter you.
26
 
Today, the kresniki have become firmly embedded in people’s belief especially 
in western Slovenia. Strongly convinced that they possess certain abilities, people in 
Istria even today believe that the kresnik (a certain person) assumes the role of witch 
doctor or village healer (Lipovec Čebron 2008: 132–136).
26 
Recorded by Mojca Ravnik, recounted by Ernest Kmet, 1989, Kluni in Istria, Archives ISN ZRC SAZU.

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45
ZELENI JURIJ (GREEN GEORGE)
In Slovenian folklore, there is another supernatural being who fights with the 
chthonic demon – his name is the Zeleni Jurij (Green George), sometimes called also 
Jurij, Jarilo or Vesnik. Slovenian folk customs reveal a folk belief that on St. George’s 
Day (April 23 or 24) Zeleni Jurij awakens the spring. Among eastern Slavs he is 
known as Jarylo, but in Slovenia it is his twin brother or the opponent who is named 
Jarnik. Zeleni Jurij conquers his enemy Rabolj in a duel; Slovenian folk customs have 
preserved the memory of this fight.
27
 Furthermore, Slovenian folk songs also recount 
a hero who saves the girl Marjetica. In the song “Trdoglav and Marjetica” (SLP I, 
no. 21) a prince saves a girl kept captive in Trdoglav’s desolate castle; Trdoglav here 
personifies the devil. In these songs or narratives, the hero defeats his opponent in a 
duel, or escapes with the girl on his horse, managing to elude his pursuers by using 
magic objects or by demanding something impossible from the girl’s abductor.
The Russian philologists Ivanov and Toporov found (mainly on the tradition 
about Zeleni Jurij) traces of the principal myth of Perun and Veles, linking Jurij/
Jarylo with the Balto-Slavic Jarovit, a deity of fertility, who was initially worshipped 
on April 15 (Ivanov, Toporov 1974: 184). Furthermore, Radoslav Katičić wrote exten-
sively on Jurij’s myth among the Slavs and on the duel between the Thunder God 
with a dragon (1987). 
Both Radoslav Katičić (1987) and Vitomir Belaj (1998) share the opinion that 
Jurij/Jarylo is the son of Perun and thus central to the pre-Slavic vegetation and fer-
tility myth. Jurij was taken by envoys of Veles to the land of the dead from which he 
returned to the world of the living in spring. As a harbinger of spring, Zeleni Jurij is 
also connected with the circular flow of time and with renewal. According to Katičić’s 
reconstruction of the myth of Zeleni Jurij, the mythic story recounts how young Jurij 
rides his horse from afar, from the land of eternal spring and the land of the dead – 
from Veles’ land – across a blood-stained sea, through a mountain to a green field. In 
Nestor’s Chronicle from the 12
th
 century, the word *irьj, *vyrьjь – “Vyrej” – denotes 
a paradise beyond the waters, a place to which birds of heaven migrate in winter; the 
name Jurij, whose etymological origin is the word irej, links him with swampland. 
At the end of his journey, Jurij arrives at the door of Perun’s court to marry Perun’s 
daughter, (his own sister) Mara. Together with the sacrifice of the horse, the hieros 
gamos ensures the growth and fertility of plants (Katičić 1989). Some Slovene folktales 
and songs also mention an incestuous relationship between a brother and a sister 
(Tvrdoglav and Marjetica, SLP I, no. 21; The girl saved from the dragon, no. 22/1-4), 
which is the reminiscence of the sacred marriage already mentioned in the myth of 
Kresnik. The sacred marriage is therefore also connected with Zeleni Jurij. 
27 
More about this see: Kuret 1989: 254–255.

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