Myth and folktales

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The Greek Plow without animals
The Greek were so powerful that they did not need animals to plow. There are 
still tracks left from the fields where they ploughed. Each of them ate a bucket 
of buckwheat mush for just one of their meals (Barle 1893: 10). 
The fact that the Greeks were also strong workers and were able to perform tasks 
much faster than people could is also told in the story about a Greek who does difficult 
tasks for his master. Among other tales about the Greeks from Bela Krajina, Janko 
Barle also wrote two fairy tales. The first one describes how the Greek woman wants 
to make sure whether the boys are strong enough to keep away the Turks. Because 
she cannot see very well, they trick her and place an iron tooth of the harrow instead 
of a finger, which she squeezes so had that she crushes it (ad ATU 1060). The other 
story describes how a Greek placed his bet on who could eat more barley porridge 
(ričet) with a maidservant. The maidservant sews a wineskin under her dress and 
throws the little barley in it. In order to see who ate more, they cut their stomachs (ad 
ATU 1088). The Greek observes that he has been tricked and kills the maidservant 
(Barle 1983: 10). 
Ivan Šašelj did not publish the stories about the Greeks in his collection (Šašelj 
1906: 1909) in which he gathered folk tradition from Bela Krajina, but he did mention 
the word grčina, meaning a colossus, a giant (Šašelj I 1906: 255).
At the end of his article “The Greeks in Bela Krajina”, Janko Barle noted that 
nobody had yet written anything about the Greeks, and that it would be interesting 
to discover whether the same name was used for the giants in some other place. He 
adds that the tradition about the giants was spread also with South Slavs and that 
they did not get it from other nations. Franz Krauss claims the same in his book 
Volksglaube und religiöser Brauch der Südslaven, on pages 129–133. To the people 
near Rijeka in Croatia, the word Greek means the same as an unknown foreign man, 
the same as is the German man to the Slovenian and Russian people, and the same 
as is Kranjac to the Croatians. 
It was not until forty years later that Niko Županič wrote that the name 
Greek used to denote a giant among the People of Bela Krajina and Banat in 
Croatia (Županič 1934: 166–179). He came to the conclusion that the word Greek 
denoting a giant has been used not only in Slovenia, but also with other Slavs. 
The name came from the south of Croatia, to Bela Krajina. According to him, 
when the Croats or the Illyrian-Roman Vlachs arrived in the ancient Roman 
province Dalmatia, they believed that the great forts and unusual buildings 
must have been built by Greeks, a fairy-tale nation of giants (Županič 1934: 171, 
175). The word Greek denoting a giant is still used today in the folk narrative 
of South Slavs.

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134
Vlajko Palavestra, who conducted research about the oral tradition about the 
Greeks in the Dinarides, made a connection between the name Greek and the Vlachs, 
an ancient population living in the Dinarides (Palavestra 1966).
ROMAN GIRLS
In addition to the Greeks, the Slovene folk narrative tradition includes also the 
Roman girls. Similar stories were told about them as they were about the pagan girls, 
the Greeks and other giants. Davorin Trstenjak recorded this narrative in Štajerska:
The roman Girls in Štajerska
The girls from the generation of giants are named the Roman girls in Štajerska. 
Take a step on the big square in Ptuj and look at the giant monument, which 
was dedicated to the god of sun. Just ask the girl from Haloze, crouching next 
to it and selling plums, who erected the monument and she will reply curtly:
“The Roman girl brought it here in her apron!”
The Roman girls were so strong that they could pick up the ploughmen, the 
drovers, the horses and the ploughs from the field and take them all home in 
her apron.
The Roman girl was able to uproot an oak tree with ease, the same as if she 
were uprooting garlic from the garden, and she also threw a millstone in the 
Drava River or brought the blacksmith an anvil from off the roof.
She was also so hungry that she ate q whole ox for breakfast and drank a tub 
of wine as well (Trstenjak 1930: 239–240). 
In Slovenia, the tradition about the Roman girls has not been kept to such extent, 
but the motif where it does appear is in accordance with the belief the ancient popula-
tion had; that they were exceedingly tall and exhibited strange behaviour. 
THE OGRE (OGER) 
The memory of Oger (Ober) remains but only in fragments. A paragraph in 
the journal Slovenski gospodar from 1940 describes the Ogri, who invaded Slovenj 
Gradec: “In 1489, the Ogres invaded Grad and occupied it, together with its bridge.”
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The name Oger for a giant was in Slovenia used mainly in Koroška and Štajerska. 
The word Ogre, denoting a giant, has been widely spread throughout Europe. In 
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Slovenski gospodar (7. 8. 1940): 3.

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135
Slovenian folk tradition, ogres were presented as gigantic frightful creatures because of 
the invasion of the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Gepids and other nations, who invaded 
other nations after the fall of the Roman Empire. 
HRUST
The giant was in Slovenia named also the Hrust. Matevž Ravnikar-Poženčan 
explained both of the meanings of this word in his manuscript notebook about the 
Hrust. 
The hrusti
The word “Hrust” is used to describe the giant in Kranjska. Thus, to a man, 
who is extremely strong and tall they say: You are just like a hrust (hulk).
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THE LOCAL GIANTS
A hulk called Hrust allegedly lived on Šmarna Gora, a mountain in the vicinity 
of Ljubljana. The story goes that this evil hulk Dovjež or Hrust threw a pile of rocks 
from the Posavje and Vižmarje flatlands on the other bank of the river Sava and thus 
a big hill was created. But when he stepped on its top it sank. Today, there is still a 
sinkhole between Šmarna Gora and Grmada (Kelemina 1930: no. 55/IV)
The giant from Lubnik, who lived in the hills of Škofja Loka (Škofjeloško hribovje), 
used a spruce tree to sweep away the opposing army that came to attack the people 
of Škofja Loka. The tale about the giant from Lubnik was also recorded by Lojze 
Zupanc (1973: 60), who often changed the folk narratives according to his liking. He 
also used his imagination to change this tale, but it is still based on folk tradition 
with the motifs related to other narratives about the giants, which can, due to being 
so powerful, from time to time also help people.
In Štajerska, people also told stories about Špelca, a mad giantess, but they could 
never catch her. In the end, it was the giantess herself who revealed the secret of 
catching her. The trick was by using a dress that was still in the form of flax an hour 
previously (Sokolov 1889: 11, Kelemina 1930: 172). 
The giants occasionally helped people, but more often they pestered them, stole 
their cattle and harvest, destroyed their fields and buildings; therefore, the people 
tried to get rid of them, but that could be done only by using a trick, as often described 
by some tales.
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Manuscript of Matevž Ravnikar-Poženčan, Archive NUK: MS 483.

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