Myth and folktales

16
The notion of the creation of the world from a grain of sand was also preserved 
in Slovene folk tradition. When God felt hot and jumped into the water to cool down, 
he brought with him a grain of sand from the seabed. Published as a folktale, this 
story had been recorded in Šiška near Ljubljana and published by Janez Trdina in 
Neven in 1858. 
God Creates the World from a Grain of sand from the seabed
There was nothing but God, the sun, and the sea. The sun was scorching hot, 
so God dived into the sea. When he rose to the surface, a grain of sand was 
stuck under one of his nails. Having fallen out, the grain remained on the 
rocks because at the very beginning, everything remained where it had fallen. 
This grain is now our world, and the seabed its homeland.
1
In addition to the tale about the creation of the world from a grain of sand from 
the bottom of the sea, Slovenian tradition has retained other etiological legends of 
creation, including the creation by means of a gaze or words. Let us examine an 
example of God’s creation of the world by a look that was recorded by Janez Trdina 
in Mengeš near Ljubljana:
God Created the World with his eyes
At the beginning, there was nothing but God, and God slept. His repose lasted 
for all eternity. But he was destined to wake up. When he woke from sleep 
he looked around, and every look produced a star. Surprised, God set on a 
journey to see what his eyes had created.
2
Trdina published this motif of creation of the world by a divine glance, although 
somewhat altered, in Ljubljanski Zvon in 1881:
Back when people were still the heathen, they did not know how God had cre-
ated them, so they told of it as they had been taught by heresy. They thought 
that God slept from the beginning. When the time came for him to wake up 
and look around, his first look created our beautiful world, his second look our 
dear sun, his third look our dear moon, and each subsequent look a glittering 
star. God was amazed by the strange things created by his eyes, and wanted 
to take a closer look. But the further he went, the more stars there were, for 
every moment produced an additional star (Trdina, 1881: 164).
1 
Trdina 1858: 60–61; Kelemina 1930: no. 206/III.
2 
Trdina 1858: 60; Kelemina 1930: no. 206/I; Trdina 1904: 1, no 1; Trdina 1954: 9.

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17
The narrative continues with an etiological legend about the creation of human 
beings that were allegedly created from a droplet of God’s sweat, which is also found 
in the tradition of other peoples. 
Whence the Man?
He travels and travels, but there is no end. So traveling, he comes to our land. 
He becomes tired, with sweat dripping from his brow. A drop of it falls to the 
ground, becomes alive – and here’s the first man! His family comes from God, 
yet he was not born from the lust but from sweat, he was predestined to toil 
and perspire.
3
Trdina published the same narrative in the journal Ljubljanski Zvon:
God grew tired of travelling and returned to our land. A drop of sweat fell 
from his brow to the ground, and the first man was born of this drop. He was 
created from divine perspiration, as a constant reminder that he has to earn 
a living by the sweat of his brow (Trdina 1881, 164).
All other related records of these tales were created under the influence of Trdina’s 
tales, or in connection with his collecting and publication of cosmogonical and etiological 
tales. One such example was recorded by Vinko Stubelj, one of Trdina’s students at a high 
school in Rijeka. The record remained in manuscript form, but was later published by 
Janez Logar in his comments to the collected works of Janez Trdina (1952: 736). Trdina 
gave lectures on these tales, possibly also encouraging his students to collect similar 
tales. The following is Vinko Stubelj’s record of the tale about the creation of the world:
Creation of the World and humanity
Like all ethnic groups, Slovenians’ ancestors worshipped natural forces. But there 
was a difference, since they personified these natural forces. Their notions were 
so beautiful and exalted that we cannot but admire them. Contrary to them, 
Germans were truly barbarians in this respect. The first and foremost was the 
belief in the Creator. According to stories, God had been sleeping for ever, but 
he was destined to wake up. Awake, he started to look around, and his every 
glance transformed into a star. According to a tale, this is how our world came 
to be as well. (Another tale says that God was bathing. When he came from 
the sea, a grain of sand remained under his nail. Later it fell out, and since 
everything remained where it had fallen, that grain landed on the sea, and this 
3 
Trdina 1858: 60; Kelemina 1930: 206/I; Trdina 1904: 1, no. 1; Trdina 1954: 9 – the legend is from 
Mengeš, near Ljubljana.

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is how our world came to be). The longer God looked about, the more stars, 
and other creatures, there were. Astonished, he set out to see all the things he 
had created. Thus traveling, he reached our land. Exhausted, he took a rest. A 
droplet of sweat fell from his brow, and – oh, exalted thoughts! – This is how the 
first Man was created. Humanity was thus created from divine sweat, and its 
time on Earth is spent trying to earn a living. Now there is a thought similar to 
Christian teachings! (Manuscript, MS 393, 153–155; Trdina 1952: 736).
Another tale about creation, recorded by Trdina and published as a belief tale 
in Dolenjsko in 1881, explains the creation of fertile land.
fertile soil from God’s Body
The heathen also recounted that the world was totally barren, nothing but 
rocks. It bore no fruit, but there was no need for food anyway. Among the 
people lived God himself, with spirit and body, and he fed people with manna 
from heavens. Yet people were unhappy, for they feared God’s greatness and 
splendour. Constantly trembling, they could neither enjoy their food and 
drink nor make merry. God felt pity for them. He separated from his body and 
moved to heaven. His body decomposed and turned into fertile soil. In God’s 
soil, people cultivated their own food and no longer needed the manna from 
heaven. It was only then that they started to enjoy their life and were happy.
4
Legends about the creation of fertile soil are known also in other parts of Europe, 
especially among Germanic and Scandinavian nations. (For more on this see the 
chapter on Kurent).
Trdina’s published tales did not go unnoticed abroad. Slovene tales about the 
creation of the world were published in the works of Karel Jaromir Erben (1865: 257; 
1866: 39), and Oskar Dänhardt (1929: 131–132) included them in the corresponding 
types of cosmogonic tales. However, quite soon afterwards some researchers started 
to doubt the authenticity of Trdina’s tales; one of them was Czech philologist Jiři 
Polivka.
5
 Later, Milko Matičetov also expressed doubts about the authenticity of 
these tales and ascribed them a fair amount of artistic freedom (Matičetov 1985: 28).
Since Ivan Grafenauer had found parallels in the tales of other nations, he was less 
critical of Trdina’s records of cosmogonic tales. A number of similar motifs from other 
parts of the world also influenced the findings of Mircea Eliade, the noted Romanian 
ethnologist, who identified in these tales a common archetypal pattern (Eliade 1967, 173). 
4 
Trdina 1881: 165; Trdina 1954: 9, no. 2; Kelemina 1930: no. 206/II.
5 
Bolte, Polivka 1932: 101.

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