Myth and folktales

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draGon
The dragon is the symbol of the ruling and life forces and is as such connected 
also with thunder and fertility. The Greek, Roman and Slavic etymology describe it 
as having the same origin as the snake has. The word zmij, with which South Slavs 
used to name the snake, is derived from the word zemeljski (earthly). The dragon had 
different names in Slovenian folk tradition, such as drak, lintver, zmin, pozoj, viza, 
iza, premog (coal) and many more. The names changed according to different times 
and different places, and the dragons also often differed according to their origin and 
character. Similarly as the snake did, the dragon (among other things) functioned 
as a mythical ancestor, a giver and a guardian of hidden treasures. The most famous 
among those who guarded the treasures is a dragon or a snake in the folktale about 
Zlatorog (Goldenhorn). In ancient myths, the dragon is the guardian of the Golden 
Fleece, the golden apples from the three of Hesperides and other treasures. 
ATMOSPHERIC DRAGON AND THE DRAGON FROM THE ROOSTER’S 
EGG
People believed that the dragons caused storms, hail and other natural disas-
ters, while they also personified the destructive forces of nature, such as landslides, 
earthquakes, avalanches etc. Simon Rutar wrote extensively about the dragons in 
journal Kres in 1885. He emphasised not only the mythological meaning of the 
dragon, but also that people imagined it was also able to cause natural disasters 
(Rutar 1885: 42). 
With his body, the dragon could make the waters stop from flowing or even 
create new springs. The folktale describes the intermittent river “Lintvern”, which 
has its spring under Zaplana near Vrhnika, and about which wrote 
Johann Weichard 
Freiherr von Valvasor. This story was told to him by a farmer.
The dragon from lintvern under Zaplana
There, where the dragon lies, is a spring. When too much water gathers for the 
dragon, he pours it away. This goes on and repeats over and over again. As 
long as the dragon is under the ground he will live, even if it is for thousands 
of years. But when he comes from earth into the air, then everything under 
his feet will cave in and break until it kills him.
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68 
Valvasor 1689 IV: XXXI; Grafenauer 1956: 332.

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109
There are numerous folktales that describe how the dragons can cause storms 
and natural disasters. In Prekmurje, for example, Števan Kühar heard that pozoj 
caused such hail in only half an hour that it peeled the bark off the trees (Kühar/
Novak 1988: 148–149).
The dragon that lived in a lake in the Matkov kot near Gornji Grad was so rest-
lessly pecking at the rock called Ribča Peč where the local people dried their fishing 
nets that he eventually broke through the rock and caused a flood. The lake started 
to overflow and also took with it the lintver (dragon) who was killed by a larch tree 
with three tops. The narrator added that the people consequently believed that only 
a larch tree with three tops could kill a dragon. 
The Slovenian narrative tradition often mentions a that dragon is hatched from 
an egg, which happens also in a tale about the Solčava dragon, which was hatched 
from an egg of a rooster.
The dragon from the rooster’s egg from once existing solčava lake
It was once told that there was a lake in the Solčava Valley and right in the 
middle of it was an egg of a rooster within the rocks. A dragon hatches and 
pecks and pecks into the rock until he breaks through the grey rocks and shows 
itself to the world. The furniture, the rocks and other things flew behind it and 
killed it. You can still find the claws of the lintvern on the field of Štajerska. 
That is also when the lake poured out completely (Železnikar 1860: 89).
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Ivan Železnikar, who was the first to publish this story in journal Slovenski glasnik 
in 1860, wrote that “the dragon in the folktales of our people presents the same as 
what the learned world calls natural disasters, such as earthquakes, landslides and 
similar” (Železnikar 1860: 89). Natural disasters, which are caused by the dragon, 
often kill the dragon as well.
Ivan Grafenauer, who referred to Železnikar’s article, gathered other study mate-
rial about dragons that could cause raging storms and natural disasters. He agreed 
with Železnikar’s definition of a dragon, describing it as the cause of atmospheric and 
earthly catastrophes. But he also added mythological interpretation to this scientific 
explanation about the origin of the folktales about the dragon from the rooster’s egg. 
He linked the lore about the dragon from the rooster’s egg with the cosmological 
rooster’s egg out of which gushed seven rivers, which is described in the cosmologi-
cal story Povest o božjem kokotu (The Folk Narrative about God’s Rooster), which 
was told by Janez Trdina, who heard it in Mengeš. Grafenauer compared these tales 
with the tales of other nations and found similarities and links even with cultural 
tales, e.g. of the Maasai people (Grafenauer 1956: 329–330). Since the dragon is a 
69 
After: Grafenauer 1924: 315; Kelemina 1930: no 174/II.

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cosmological supernatural being, which appears at the beginning and the end of 
the world, his role here was transferred on the local level. Grafenauer’s comparison 
between the egg out of which the dragon had to peck, and the egg of God’s rooster 
– as a metaphor – could be correct from this point of view.
The folk tradition about the lake that runs out of its water and the dragon that is 
the cause for this was connected by Ivan Hrovatin with the memory about the lake 
which stood at the same area before the settlement was built. The tale presents a kind 
of a local cosmogonical myth about the origin of new settlements of mainly Slavic 
inhabitants (Hrovati 2007). Simon Rutar published several tales in his historical 
presentation of the Tolmin region (Rutar 1882) at the end of the 19
th
 century, which 
were about the origin of the settlements on the area where the lake once stood.
A folk belief that the dragon can hatch out of the rooster’s egg spread throughout 
Slovenia. The rooster was believed to be seven years old, black or multi-coloured, while 
other folktales describe it as being a hundred years old. According to some narra-
tions, it can also be hatched out of the egg of a black chicken, which has been at the 
house for nine years. The egg should roll around in the mud, earth, marsh and rocks 
at the edge of the lake, as it does in the tale about the dragon from the Solčava valley. 
A dragon is not the only being that can be hatched out of the egg of the rooster. 
Some tales claim that a devil or a dwarf or blagonič can be hatched as well. Lovro 
Žvab from Tupalče wrote about a blagonič, which hatched out of an egg of a seven-
year-old rooster. 
Blagonič from the egg of a rooster
Those who wish to have a lot of money must, when the chicks are hatched, 
choose a black rooster, which must be fed under a bushel. When seven years 
pass, the rooster will hatch an egg, out of which will be hatched a thing, which 
is called blagonič. 
The blagonič must be always kept and fed in a secret place and it will repay 
its master with as much of money as he will need. But if the rooster resents 
the master for not feeding it well, then blagonič will disappear and take all 
the good luck with him. 
One day the master cooks the blagonič some fava bean (vicia faba), which was 
not even well-cooked, and makes sausages for himself. This makes blagonič 
very angry so he goes in the barn, hangs on the door the most beautiful ox 
by its tail and runs around the house, screaming, “The broad bean is not 
well-done, the ox is hanged by its tail!” and thus luck never returned to that 
house again.
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70 
Manuscript of Lovro Žvab inArchive ISN ZRC SAZU: ŠZ 7/216, 8. Published by Kropej, Dapit 2002: 
26, no. 8.

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