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Fairy World in Croatian Mythological Tales and Petar Gudelj’s Poetry and Prose

Procopius of Caesarea, Byzantine writer and member of the court of Byzantine emperor Justinian I described the customs of Slavs who infiltrated the Byzantine territory in the 6th century A.D. In his piece De Bellis he wrote that Slavs especially worshiped nymphs (fairies) and rivers. Jacobus da Varagine also wrote about fairies in his cult piece Legenda Aurea written in 1275 and published for the first time in 1470. In Croatian mythology, fairies are commonly mythological creatures. In Slavic and Croatian mythology, fairies are fabulous beauties, almost always dressed in long white, less often blue, dresses, with combed long golden-yellow hair, blue or green eyes, a flower wreath on their head, harmonious voice, quick and lean. They are an incarnation of beauty. In Croatian tales, fairies endowed people with physical and spiritual strength ; gave strength to weak shepherds ; bestowed beauty upon girls. According to the Croatian tales, fairies taught people to be considerate, humble, and kind and instructed girls and women in weaving, making bread, healing, and other skills. Also, according to tales, they protected children from danger. It is said that they did evil only if someone annoyed them by betraying the secret that one of their feet had donkey or horse hoofs or goat cloven hoofs. Fairies can be found in many literary works written by Croatian writers, such as Marin Držić, Petar Zoranić, Juraj Baraković, and many others. Numerous Croatian writers have produced literary pieces of anthological value inspired by stories about fairies. Among them is Petar Gudelj considered by historians of Croatian literature to be the greatest living Croatian poet. Therefore, paper analyses Petar Gudelj’s collection of poems and prose Zmija mladoženja in search of fairy motifs and compares them to relevant literature and Croatian mythological tales.

mythology ; fairies ; Petar Gudelj ; traditional stories ; folk beliefs

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