Myth and folktales

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in Prekmurje and Koroška but is also known in other parts of the Slovene ethnic 
territory. 
Svečari were imagined as creatures with a burning candle instead of a head or 
as large headless people who measure fields at night. According to reports from the 
vicinity of Croatian Varaždin and Medžimurje, the local svečari were ascribed the 
same characteristics. In both areas, the svečari were imagined as headless people 
who, when they were still alive, had been stealing land from their neighbour. After 
death they appear as the souls of those who had died a violent death or else had 
committed a crime and went unpunished; they are believed to have no heads. The 
svečniki, or the svečari, are the souls or the spirits of the dead who have a candle 
instead of a head and are usually seen during Advent and before All Saints’ Day. If 
they bump into one another their candles emit sparks. Since they can be delivered 
from their cursed state by prayer, they tend to gather around those who, upon 
beholding them, start praying.
svečari (Candle-heads)
The svečari are those who, while being alive, committed a wrong by med-
dling with boundaries in the field. This is why God does not let them rest in 
peace but sentences them to roam around the boundaries where they had 
committed a wrong. Mostly they appear during the Advent and two weeks 
before All Saints’ Day. They don’t have real heads like other people but carry 
in that place a large candle. When they collide they emit many sparks, like 
when you set a heap of pine branches on fire. If they see anybody they come 
closer, and the more he prays the closer they get. People believe that they can 
be redeemed this way. If, however, that person starts to curse, they leave him 
immediately (Valjavec 1866: 230).
The svečari in this narrative are portrayed as the cursed souls of those who 
had been stealing land from their neighbours and had shifted their milestones. In 
Medžimurje, the people of Sobotica believed that the svečari were sinful monks.
The svečari are monks who had lived sinfully. This is why God punished 
them, and so they have to roam around when the moon is young. They 
have burning candles instead of heads. When a person starts praying, upon 
beholding them the svečar come nearer but if he starts to curse they leave 
(Valjavec 1866: 230).
A similar punishment would befall the “surveyors” who had wrongfully 
measured fields. Such souls were called džileri (engineers) in Prekmurje. Already 

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mentioned by Števan Kühar (1911: no. 47; Kelemina 1930: no. 94/I), Dušan Rešek 
wrote about them more recently.
Džilerji (engineers)
People claimed that at night, usually in Advent, the džileri ran around the 
fields. These were the spirits of surveyors who during their lifetime did not 
justly measure land plots and now returned to this world to settle the injustice 
they had caused.
A man from Melinci was returning from St. Mark’s Fair at Beltinci late at 
night. He had sold a cow there and celebrated a bit in a local tavern.
When he reached the bridge over the Doubel, a džiler caught up with him. 
He jumped on the man’s shoulders and the man had to carry it all the way to 
the cemetery in Melinci. There the apparition climbed off his shoulders and 
receded in the mortuary (Rešek 1995: 59, no. 19).
According to the lore of Prekmurje, the džilejri can appear as glowing appari-
tions with shining lamps, or as a kind of giants. People reported the sighting of a 
very large man with no head.
The souls returning to this world were also called preklesa in Prekmurje. As 
mentioned before, this term denoted the soul of an unborn child. But it could also 
refer to the souls of those who during their lifetime had committed an injustice and 
return to their homes so that others could settle their sins or debt and pray for them. 
They often left traces of their presence, for example hand imprints. If the sound of 
crying was heard from a house, that house would allegedly have a stroke of bad luck 
(Kühar 1911, no. 48; Kelemina 1930: 161–161, no 107). 
The spirit of the deceased may also appear as a frog. In Resia, for example, 
people recounted how a woman dug some soil along the border of her field in Korito 
day by day, thus gradually stealing the land from her neighbor. When she died, a 
large frog appeared on that spot. This story stresses the importance of respecting 
the boundaries between plots of land. Moving these boundaries was considered a 
major sin, almost as serious as killing another person. The offender had to atone 
even after death.

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the BeWitChed
The treasury of Slovene folktales and legends contains many stories about 
bewitched princes, princesses, counts, and countesses. Due to their sin, mostly avarice 
(for refusing to give a piece of bread to a beggar, for example), arrogance, or greed, 
they were bewitched and turned into snakes, dogs, wolves, crows, etc. They had to 
serve their penalty until Judgment Day. This motif is particularly diverse in fairy 
tales where new-born children may already be bewitched. Mothers may also curse 
their children, thus transforming them into crows. 
Castle ruins are often associated with stories about bewitched castle lords. Among 
the most famous is Veronika from Mali Grad in Kamnik, who was also called the “snake 
virgin”. The lore of Veronika of Kamnik was collected by Emilijan Cevc, who wrote 
an extensive treatise on it (Cevc 1958). According to some narratives, Veronika was a 
heathen princess, or a Christianized heathen girl who broke off her engagement with 
a heathen knight, while in others she was a miserly castle lady who refuses to give the 
money to build a church. As punishment, she is bewitched into a snake or a dragon. 
Sunk into the earth and guarding treasures, she waits for redemption. Occasionally, she 
appears as a beautiful maiden, which generally happens on quarter evenings when ghosts 
have power and haunt places. Then she comes to the stream or sits on the staircase. She 
can be saved by a seven-year-old boy who has to strike her thrice with a year-old hazel 
switch or with a switch that has been blessed. She can be saved in the same way by an 
honest young man or with three kisses from him, or by providing correct answers to 
her questions. In some tales, Veronika can be saved by a hero who will cut off the head 
of the evil spirit who is guarding her. However, as the young man usually fails in his 
attempts, the bewitched girl has to wait for her saviour in the cradle. This means that 
her saviour has not been born yet and will be rocked in the cradle that will be cut from 
a tree that has not yet been felled, or has not even grown yet.
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 In Slovenia, Veronika 
became a metaphor for a heroine who had been cursed into a snake or a dragon.
Similar tales are known in other parts of Europe, for example in Slavia Veneta, 
where people told the story about the disimirina (Ciceri 1992: 463). According to one 
tale, this giant snake with large human eyes was a girl who had killed her illegitimate 
baby and buried it under ruins. Because of infanticide, she was condemned to death. 
She managed to escape but fell into an abyss and died. Now, she roams around the 
world in the form of a large snake.
This tradition is based on the ancestor cult, combined with the motif of redemp-
tion on Judgment Day, or salvation by the divine son, or the “Rescuer in the Cradle”, 
and with the curse motif (Kropej 1995: 136–139). 
146 
More about this see: Ranke 1911.

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