About the book

Matevž Ravnikar – nicknamed Poženčan after his birth place Poženik pri Cerkljah in the Upper Carniola region – was the first to write down Slovenian stories and tales. He was not only Prešeren’s contemporary, but also his classmate. In Romanticism, when the European peoples were becoming intensively aware of their national identity, incentives for researching of the Slovenian national culture appeared in Slovenia as well. In the 1830s, Poženčan was the first to undertake writing down of the Slovenian folk tradition, legends, myths and authentic national motives. Although he was a priest, he did not avoid delicate subjects and we can thus hold his records to be a reliable reflection of his time. This book is a collection of 21 stories, 24 tales and 10 descriptions of mythological beings. These are all very old stories with fairytale ingredients that tell us a lot about how our ancestors experienced the world. Some of the tales are very well known: Kralj Matjaž, Peter Klepec, Štempihar. The foreword has is by Dr. Marija Stanonik, associate professor at the Institute of Slovenian Ethnology ZRC-SAZU.