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caul or
as a tenth or twelfth brother, or were born with the mark of a horseshoe and
other signs. (See the chapter on Kresnik).
The opponent of a kresnik was the vedomec, or bedanec, or benandant. They too
could be recognized at birth by body features such as hairiness, connected eyebrows,
an extra tooth in their mouths etc. Vedomci supposedly came to get their appren-
tice when the latter reached seven years of age, and they set out together to fight at
crossroads and under trees.
Students of black magic, sorcerer’s apprentices, pupils in
the eighth level of magical
school called also grabancijaš dijaki (students from the word necromantes=conjurer),
supposedly learned their skills in a school called the black school, the thirteenth school
or the Babylonian school, directly from the devil or from Šembilja, as in the stories
of the students of Black Magic. The apprentice sorcerer traditionally sold his soul to
the devil. They knew how to drive away snakes and dragons, which they searched
for in ponds, to stop them causing harm. Apprentice sorcerers rode dragons, and the
dragons as guardians of treasures, obeyed them. When
there was severe thunder and
lightning, people said that the apprentice sorcerers were riding their dragons; when
storms or tornadoes occurred they were supposedly “lifting the lintvern” (“lintvern”
being a word for a dragon).
Many stories and fairy tales tell of witches and wizards meeting secretly at night.
According to popular narrative, witches rode to the kingdom of the night or of death
on brooms, humans, or animals. They held witches’ feasts, celebrations and dances.
For instance, in the story about a witch with horseshoes on her feet, which is also
preserved in verse form (SLP I/1970: no. 30), a witch rides to the nightly meetings
upon her husband’s back. On these occasions, she always changed him into a horse,
until one day he was too quick for her and changed her into a mare, took her to the
blacksmith and had her shod. Stories about witches with horseshoes are known in
the Celtic,
Germanic, Romanic and Slavic worlds.
People believed that witches and wizards flew on Saturdays (the Jewish Sabbath),
the days connected with lunar changes, and that they met on a hill called Klek, which
became known as the gathering place of witches. The flight of witches can be inter-
preted as the “travelling of the spirit”, which like an “alter ego” can leave the body
in the form of an insect or a mouse, travel through other worlds and communicate
with spirits of the deceased, while the body remains in a trance.
In numerous stories, spirits or devils helped witches and wizards. They took
the form of black cats, crows, goats or goblins. Some supposedly
kept their helping
spirit at home, stored in a jar or a bottle. They knew how to summon them, usually at
midnight in their home, or at a crossroads, under a tree, or from a circle which they
drew and then stepped into. When summoning their spirits, they sometimes used
books of black magic called Kolomonov žegen (Kolomon’s Blessing), named after St.
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Kolomon (Grafenauer 1907; id. 1943a). They gave the
spirits names such as Crnagel,
Prokvas, Mozrl, Gabrijam etc. According to popular belief, witches and wizards knew
about treasures and how to access or unlock them.
People also believed that wizards and witches cast weather spells and created hail,
storms, winds and rain. It was said that witches danced in whirlwinds and that the
wind carried them in the clouds. Sometimes the wind could drop one into a nearby
stream. People tried to protect themselves from such weather disturbances by ring-
ing bells and firing cannons. Often people tried to drive the storm away themselves
using sacred objects, such as a blessed bell or holy water.
There was a widespread belief that wizards could
prevent cows from giving milk,
the earth from bearing crops, and that they could create illnesses in people and ani-
mals. They could take the milk from a cow by stealing a rope from a shepherd and
“milking” it by pulling both ends while murmuring strange words. Alternatively,
they stuck a stick in a tree or into the soil to make the milk flow.
There would also be no crop yield in fields where witches had buried an object.
They damaged vineyards by burying quicksilver in the soil. Witches also knew how
to move a crop to their own fields by, for example, collecting the morning dew.
Some days in the year were considered especially suitable for witchcraft, and
on those days witches and wizards supposedly had special powers. These times
included Christmas, the twelve
nights around the New Year, the eve of St. George’s
Day, Easter, the night of the First of May, the summer solstice, Pentecost, the feast
days of St. Thomas, St. Urban, St. Bartholomew, St. Margaret, the time following the
first Sunday after the new moon, and on Quarter Days. The days related to witchcraft
were Thursday, Friday and Saturday. People lit bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve and on
St. George’s Eve which supposedly had great magical powers. It was believed that on
the summer solstice witches fought with kresniks and people fired mortars to protect
themselves against them. The people from around the town
of Pivka believed that on
Christmas Eve Sentjanzevci fought with Vedavci, who drink human blood (Valvasor
1689, XI: 456). On St. George’s Day, housewives blew horns at the crack of dawn to
chase away bajanci, so they would not cause cows to lose milk or harm the crops.
Servants from across the River Mura cracked their whips for the same purpose. If
the night before Whit Sunday was dewy, witches wrapped in sheets would roam in
wheat fields and wring the wet sheet over their own field, thereby transferring the
wheat to themselves. Likewise, on Sundays after the new moon they would drag sheets
over hedges and pastures before the sunrise, acquiring in that way the property of
others. They also knew about treasures and could unearth money where “a
treasure
bloomed”, as they said.
People usually believed that the person who had caused illness, poor crops, bad
weather and similar troubles was one of their neighbours; even one of their relatives or