EUROPA - Giantess (Ajdovska deklica)

EUROPA – Stories and Myths

The Giantess and King Matjaž

The two new stamps in the Europa series, this time on the theme of “Stories and Myths”, feature a mythological being and a figure from legend: the Giantess and King Matjaž.

The Giantess (Ajdovska deklica) is one of many mythological figures in a Slovene folk tradition that tells of a mountain-dwelling race of giants. These giants were said to have lived “long ago”, so stories about them are though to contain popular beliefs about the original inhabitants of the land. Stories about giants and giantesses vary considerably. People used to explain ancient material remains and prehistoric burial mounds as giantish structures. The former inhabitants of these structures were said to be trapped by enchantments in the ruins – or in some cases even in the walls of churches, as with the story of the giantess’s rib in the pilgrimage church at Crngrob near Škofja Loka. There are many tales and legends about giants and giantesses, but perhaps one of the best known is the story of the petrified giantess on the face of Prisank, a mountain near Kranjska Gora. According to the legend, a giantess prophesied that a hunter’s newborn son would grow up to be a hunter like his father and would one day shoot the golden-horned chamois known as Zlatorog. This prediction angered the other giantesses, who turned their fortune-telling sister to stone, trapping her on the side of a mountain, where she can still be admired today by the many visitors to Slovenia’s Julian Alps.

Janez Bogataj