Myth and folktales

244
Velikan, see giant
Vermante, see vedomec 
Veronika, from Mali Grad above Kamnik; 
the snake virgin. The heathen princess; a 
Christianized heathen girl who breaks off 
her engagement to a heathen knight; a stingy 
castle maiden who refuses to contribute 
money toward a new church; a noblewoman 
who refuses to embrace the Christian faith; 
etc. Bewitched into a snake or a dragon, 
she watches over treasures and waits for 
redemption. Occasionally, she appears as a 
beautiful maiden. She can be rescued by a 
seven-year-old boy or by an honest young 
man who would thrice strike her with a year-
old hazel switch; kiss her thrice; answer her 
riddles correctly; by a hero who would cut off 
the head of the evil demon who is guarding 
her. If all this fails, Veronika has to wait for 
her rescuer who has not yet been born; he 
will lie in a cradle made from an oak tree 
that has not yet sprouted. In the territory of 
present-day Slovenia, Veronika has become a 
parable for a heroine bewitched into a snake, 
a character that has many parallels in other 
European folk narratives. The lore is based on 
the ancient snake cult, or on ancestral cults.
Lit.: E. Cevc: 
Veronika z Malega gradu (Veronika of Mali 
Grad). Kamniški zbornik 4, 1958.
Vesna, a supernatural being similar to fair-
ies and the wild hunt. According to popular 
belief, the vesnas gather particularly in the 
month of February that has been named the 
vesnar after them, typically during the days 
close to the name day of St. Matthias. Ac-
cording to the lore from Krn, groups of the 
vesnas rush around, awake nature, and bring 
fertility. Woe to those who would be run over 
by them or noticed following them.
Vesnik, see Kresnik, Zeleni Jurij
Vešča, see witch
Veter, see wind 
Veternik, see wind
Vetrih, see wind
Vidovina, see vedomec
Vila, see fairy 
Vilenjak, see wild man
Vipera, see snake
Viza, see dragon
Volčji pastir, see Wolf-Shepherd
Volčko, see Wolf-Shepherd
Vouvel, see Veles
Vož, see snake
Vrag, see devil 
Vuórek, see podlegaj
Wandering jew, see Ahasuerus
Washerwoman, perica, nočna baba, nočna 
gospa, božja deklica. A beautiful female myth-
ical being with long hair covered with a white 
bonnet, dressed in white. She quietly washes 
the laundry by ponds, waterholes, and springs 
but may turn upon a chance passer-by, strik-
ing him or her in the face with her iron hand. 
She punishes girls who have left their laundry 
outside during the night; tears the thread 
left on the spinning wheel overnight; comes 
to people’s homes at night and bakes a cake 
in their hearth; etc. She may replace a baby 
asleep in the cradle with her own child or pull 
careless children who come too near a body 
of water into it. Fal Pulicic, a brook in Friuli, 
Italy, was named after the washerwoman. 

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245
Water sprite, povodni mož, povodnjak, jez-
ernik, vodovnik, muk, gestrin, salemsonar, 
motovilec, mital, vancaš, mamalić. A su-
pernatural being, the water sprite may be 
a large, green, and scaly or hairy man or a 
young man; he may also have a fishtail. The 
water sprite was believed to inhabit the sea, 
lakes, rivers, springs, brooks, water holes 
and puddles. People living in the vicinity of 
Gorica/Gorizia believed that the salemsonarji 
navigated waters in a barrel, looking for those 
who had drowned, who in turn became new 
water sprites. In Štajersko, children were 
warned to beware of the muk who could 
pull them underwater. The gestrin living in 
the Drava was thought to be young, with 
fins instead of legs. The lake beneath Kum 
was inhabited by the mital that manifested 
himself in the form of a dog and, when angry, 
caused thunderstorms and gusts of wind. The 
water sprite can be driven from his original 
dwelling by cracking whips, whistling, and 
bell ringing. In that case, he changes loca-
tion overnight by appropriating a farmer’s 
ox-driven wagon, and leaves as payment a 
heap of rubbish, charcoal, nails, scales, etc., 
which are subsequently transformed into 
gold; occasionally he fills an ox’s horn with 
gold. The water sprite may also kidnap peo-
ple, particularly children and young women. 
A familiar motif in literary folklore is the 
kidnapping of a female dancer. Similar to 
the guardian of the home, water sprites (i.e. 
the mamalič) punish those who eat the food 
that has been prepared for them. In Štajerska, 
it was believed that those looking for water 
could find it if they gave the vancaš an ofer 
(offering); in this context, the verb vancati 
allegedly denoted to look for water. 
Werewolf, volkodlak, vukodlák, okodlák, 
kódlak, verkodlák. 1) A supernatural being in 
the shape of a wolf; or a being with the front 
part of its body in human shape and with 
the back of a wolf. 2) A human transforming 
into a wolf, marked as such from birth; pos-
sessing wolfish characteristics. 3) A human 
bewitched into a wolf because of his sins, 
bewitchment caused by his mother, or other 
magic. The birth of a werewolf is foretold 
when an expectant mother sees a wolf after 
the moon has set, or when the baby is born 
with its legs first, or still in the placenta. The 
werewolf can be rescued by sewing a part of 
the placenta in his shoulder or by turning 
him around at birth. A bewitched werewolf 
may be saved if thrown a piece of bread in 
God’s name. When he dies, he needs to be 
placed face down or have a nail placed under 
his tongue. If manure is left on the field over 
Christmas, a werewolf is expected to appear 
in that spot to attack the kresnik with sticks. 
In Friuli, werewolves are depicted as people 
clad in wolf skins who suck blood from those 
who are asleep or dead. They may suck on the 
children whose mother cursed them during 
the day. A legend tells about a werewolf dis-
guised as a human who had courted a young 
woman, begot twins, one of which was white 
and the other hairy, and killed the white one. 
The stories about werewolves, mentioned in 
antiquity (Herod’s accounts of the Neurs), 
have often merged with the lore on the ve-
domci, vampires, and wolf shepherds. 
Lit.: F. Wiesthaler: 
The Werewolf and the Vampire in Slavic 
Mythology. Ljubljanski zvon 3, 1883.
Wild hunt, divja jaga, divji lov, divja plav, 
dulja jaga, vraži lov (devil’s hunt), divja vo-
jska (wild army). A thunderous galloping of 
mysterious horses beneath the firmament; 
a nightly rush of demons, of dead souls 
believed to rage during the Advent and dur-
ing Ember Week; during eight days, before 
and after New Year’s, when demons take 
possession and people are required to thank 
them for the bounties of nature. According 
to a legend from Tržič, this is the time when 
the golden hag (Zlata Baba) drives eagles, 
snakes, and any other kind of animal under 
the sky. The wild hunt tears apart anybody 
it overtakes, and people can escape only by 

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