Myth and folktales

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them with kindness and gave them food and milk to drink. They brought luck and 
well-being to their homesteads. 
Thus, in some folk narratives, the snake queen gives its crown to the children 
or to the kind people. 
The snake bestows the crown
There once was a farmwife who had small children. She had to work on a field 
and had to leave her children at home. She poured them milk in a bowl as to 
not leave them hungry while she was gone. They never left anything in the bowl, 
thus their mother always praised them for being such obedient children. But 
the children claimed: “But we never eat alone, a beautiful birdie comes and 
eats with us.” The mother thought that a cat might come and join her children 
while they ate but she found it strange that they were talking about a white 
bird. She wanted to make sure which animal the children were talking about. 
Therefore, she hid in the house after giving the children milk in the doorway. S
oon, a white snake with a beautiful crown slithers from under the table straight 
into the lap of the youngest. The mother is paralyzed by fear. But the children 
caressed and stroked this beautiful “birdie”. When the snake fills up on milk, 
she shakes the beautiful little crown off her head and again finds its way into 
the hole. As soon as the snake is gone, the mother jumps into the doorway 
and grabs the children and takes them to a safe place. 
Of course, she does not forget to take the crown as well and puts it into the 
wooden chest where they keep the yarn. The grandfather had to spin the yarn 
all winter long but still he could not spin it all. The woman thought to herself: 
“What could this be? Might the crown have such power?” Thus, she removes 
the crown and the yarn was soon threaded. They put the crown in the grain 
and they had to measure it over and over again, but still they never ran out 
of it. They also added the little crown to other things and shortly the house 
became the richest in the village. They kept the little crown as long as lived this 
generation of people who treated the snake with such kindness and affection 
(Kelemina 1930: 135–136, written by Novak in 1858).
In this folktale from Podbrezje in Gorenjska, the house snake comes to drink 
milk with children every time the parents are not at home. In some folk narratives, 
the snake even drinks out of the baby’s bottle (ATU 285) and it also comes at night 
if the people set milk in a cup just for her.
This folktale presents very clearly the magic power of the crown that brings good 
fortune. Wherever you place the crown, be it next to the yarn, the grain or potatoes, 
you will have an abundance of it. A ball of endless wool carried a similar power; it 

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was given as a gift by the žalik žena (fairy or Fate), and comes to an end only after 
the local people curse it.
However, when the house snake, which is in Slovenia often called the ož, is not 
received with kindness or is even killed, then great misfortune befalls the homestead, as 
can be seen in the folktale from Martinj Vrh, which is near Škofja Loka (Tušek 1858: 97).
The ož also protects the house against disasters and also warns the family about 
the danger threatening them or their household. In return, they express their grati-
tude by giving it dinner, most of the time they give it a bowl of milk. But woe betide 
the master of the house if he kills the ož, for he will soon mourn because death will 
take away from him the person who is the closest to him. 
People also told stories that it once occurred that a man fell into a cave, which 
was full of snakes. He survived among them because he licked the žilštajn (snake 
stone), as the snakes did. In other versions of this folk narrative, the snake queen 
or the snake king Kačjak saved the man who fell into the cave by throwing him 
out with the help of its tail and save him from almost certain death. However, the 
snake queen often demands that this boy must not reveal their secret. If he does, 
then the snake takes revenge on this boy who was so greedy to come back to steal 
their riches.
CHASING AWAY THE SNAKES 
In some folktales, snakes often pester people and are seen as a form of punish-
ment that befell people, or an individual, because of the sins they had committed. As 
God’s way of punishment, the snake might wrap itself around the neck of the sinner 
and let go only after many years have passed. They also believed that the snakes will 
multiply if they kill them. They might even attack the whole town or the village. 
According to folk tradition, they might also serve as punishment for people’s mis-
conduct. When this happened, they had to ask for help of professional snake chasers, 
who were people with extraordinary talents or vast knowledge. According to folktales, 
they are usually sorcerers, mainly so-called črnošolci (sorcerer’s apprentices) or fairy 
tale or mythological beings, such as Jurij (George) and kresnik. Chasing the snakes 
can also be very dangerous. The snake queen or the white snake needs to just whistle 
and all the snakes that are subordinate to it will gather at once.
The White snake
The Vžekar family in Poden/Bodental (a hamlet across Ljubelj in Kärnten/
Koroška) once had so many snakes that the housekeeper could no longer keep 
up with them. They crawled all over the granary and in the kitchen, they 

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were found in the cooked cabbage and in the cribs of the children, although 
they did not do them any harm. The members of the Vžekar family went on 
pilgrimage but none of it did any good. 
One day a traveller came by and claimed that he could chase the snakes away, 
but only if the white snake was not near. All of them confirmed that they have 
not yet seen one. Some say that they really had not seen it before, while others 
say that they kept it a secret. 
Thus, the traveller started with his preparations. He went to the end of the road 
where a tall spruce tree grew. He send for some dry brushwood and branches 
and ordered for it to be put around and around the spruce tree. He put this 
heap on fire and climbed on the tree and started to whistle on his flute in a 
very high pitch. The snakes started to wind theur way towards the spruce tree 
and most of them came from the house. They all died in the fire. But soon, 
the people heard something from afar, from Helige Wand (Sveta Peč), to be 
exact, a piercing whistle that jarred ever bone in the people who were near.
The man on the spruce tree screamed:
“People, run, and pray for me, for I am lost!”
There truly came a white snake, which was as fat as a long, wide wooden pole. 
It rushed through the fire and straight on the spruce tree so that the men fell 
down from it and, together with the snake, died in the fire.
They put a cross in that exact place in his memory (Šašel, Ramovš 1936-37: 
26–27).
The snake often personifies evil, since the snake is the allegory of evil in the ancient 
myths, and it needs to be defeated because it presents a threat to the world. This is the 
case in the myth in which the snake eats the sun. When the snake has such a negative 
role, it is called the vipera or the ses. The vipera of Goriško was said to have a comb 
of a rooster or a golden apple on its head, while it could also whistle beautifully. In 
many aspects it is thus similar to the basilisk, which was mentioned in the Bible. The 
ses is present mainly in Štajerska as a big and dangerous snake, which attacks Kresnik. 

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