Author of all texts about mythology on these web-pages is Lidija Bajuk:

   lidija.bajuk@posluh.hr
   scena.hgu.hr/lidija-bajuk/

  1. PERUN
      - The Sky
      - The Mountain
  2. PERUNIKA
      - Leluya
      - Ball lightning
  3. AQUARIUS
      - Candlemen
      WATER MAID
      - Fairies
      - Witches
  4. DRAGON
      - Water
      SNAKE
      - Bogorodica
        (Rainbow)
  5. GREEN GEORGE
      - The Moon
      - Corn Spirit
  6. LEPA MARA
      - Hair
      - Embroidery
  7. GRABANCIJAŠ
      - Light
  8. PESJANEK
      - Forest
  9. LITTLE RED HAT
       (DWARF)
      - The Cap, Little Hat
  10. STRAHE & MRAKI
        (GIANTS)


PESJANEK (PESJAK, PASJANEK, P(A)S(J)OGLAVAC/PESOGLAVEC, PASJAN, PESJAK, SONGLAV (''doghead''))

- a child born degenerate because its mother swore on it before it was born, or a child born out of a promiscuous relationship. As a degenerate and short-sighted deity it becomes a spirit of the forest. It has a tail and long, green hair, sometimes four legs and sometimes horse's legs.

People from Medjimurje would forbid their children to go into forests by frightening them with it. If they went it would bite off their finger when it catches them. His one eye represents the dominion of dark, instinctive and passionate forces. They start to hinder it if a hero of divine origin does not overcome them, or in other words if they are not controlled. Its one eye becomes evil similar to the so called evil eye (especially old woman's or bride's) which is the source of evil spells casted on somebody because of envy. Evil spells are directed against people at sensitive or transitional points in their life, against cattle, grain, or products of human labour in general. Luckily you can get protected from them.

Pesjanek is the lord of the lightning and thunder. In the shady woods Pall is the master of heaven and light who has, in the second half of the year, lost its heavenly power in the continental parts of the land in order to gain primordial earthly power. That is why he has lost one of its eyes and will lose eyesight in the other eye until it is completely blind. At the same time it will lose the power of thinking rationally. The intuitive and subconscious will gradually overcome it and it will become clairvoyant.





In Croatian folk heritage there are a few mythical creatures similar to Pesjanek. A powerful, but small forest creature with deadly eyes and large teeth, visible because it is always grining, is called Kečizub. A one-eyed guard Orko, who can also have three heads is also a doghead (Psoglavac). It guards the door to hell and kills kidnapped children by sucking their blood. Divlji Čovjek/Zvicer (''the wild man'') is a one-eyed giant living in caves. He reflects the stories of Volos/Veles who was imagined as an old man or a one-eyed giant with a lamb in his hands and an ox before his feet.

Although when you talk about these creatures you automatically think of Titans and Cyclops from Greek mythology, the origin of the Pesjanek from Medjimurje is historic (i.e. history helped in keeping the memory of an older mythical creature). The Tatars, who were nomadic people (they lived in tents shaped like domes) always on the move fighting for survival because of the lack of fertile land in the east and, later, as Turkish vassals and auxiliary armed forces and had the reputation of being the most ruthless and bloodthirsty robbers of all time. In 1242 they came to Hungary and Croatia and plundered both countries. They invaded Medjimurje again in 1663, although Nikola Zrinski, a national hero, defeated them in the battle near the river Mura that same year. Because of it and because of their shortness, uncouthness, narrow Asian eyes, hairyness, head deformity (children of Tatar aristocrats wore headbands which deformed their heads), meat-eating (even human flesh which is recorded in the belief that Pesjanek would bite of a child's finger), scruffyness, brutality and lootings during the night they frightened the domestic population horribly and made them identify the terrible foreigners with forest demons from folk tales that were almost forgotten. It is said that Tatars left Medjimurje (or to be more exact, the wood Ortolovec, near the village St. Mary) after a big flood.