Prince Marko - in Legends

In Legends

South Slavic legends about Kraljević Marko or Krali Marko are mostly based on mythological motifs that are much older than the historical Marko Mrnjavčević. There are differences between the hero's image in the legends and that in the folk poems. In some areas he was imagined as a giant who walked stepping on hilltops, his head knocking the clouds. It was also narrated that he helped God in shaping the Earth in ancient times, and created the river gorge of Demir Kapija ("Iron Gate") with a stroke of his sabre. Thus he drained the sea that covered the regions of Bitola, Mariovo, and Tikveš in Macedonia, which enabled people to inhabit them. After the Earth was shaped, he took to arrogantly showing off his strength. God took it away from him by leaving a bag as heavy as the Earth on a road: when Marko tried to lift it, he lost his gigantic strength and became an ordinary man.

Legends also have it that the hero acquired his strength after he was suckled by a vila. King Vukašin threw his little son Marko into a river, because he did not resemble him, but the boy was saved by a cowherd who adopted him as a son, and the vila suckled him. By other accounts, Marko was a shepherd or a cowherd who found a vila's children lost in a mountain, and made a shade for them against the scorching sun, or gave them water. As a reward, the vila suckled him three times, after which he was able to lift and throw a huge boulder. In an Istrian version of this story, he made a shade for two snakes instead of the children. In a Bulgarian version, each of the three draughts of milk that he suckled from the vila's breast, turned into a snake.

He was regularly associated with huge solitary boulders and indentations in rocks. The boulders were said to be thrown by Marko from a hill, the indentations being his footprints or those of his horse. He was also connected with other geographic objects, such as hills, glens, cliffs, caves, rivers, brooks, and groves, which he created or did something memorable at. They were often named after him, so there are many toponyms from Istria in the west to Bulgaria in the east that are derived from the hero's name. In stories from Bulgaria and Macedonia, Marko had a sister who was as strong as he, and competed with him in throwing boulders.

Marko's wonder-horse was a gift from a vila by some legends, while a Serbian story gives the following account. He was looking for a horse that could bear him. To test a steed, he would grab him by the tail and sling him over his shoulder. Noticing a leprous piebald foal owned by some carters, he grabbed him by the tail, but could not move him at all. Marko bought and cured the foal, naming him Šarac (after šara "dapple"). He grew up into an enormously powerful horse, becoming the hero's inseparable companion. A legend from Macedonia has it that Marko, on a vila's advice, captured a sick horse in a mountain and cured him. The patches on his skin that had been covered with crusts grew white hairs, so the hero's horse became piebald.

According to folk traditions the hero never died, but lives on in a cave, in a den covered with moss, or in an unknown land. A Serbian legend recounts that Marko once fought in a battle in which so many men were killed that the fighters and their horses ended up swimming in blood. He lifted up his hands towards heaven and said, "O God, what am I going to do now!" God took pity on Marko transporting him and Šarac into a cave, where the hero stuck his sabre into the rock and fell asleep. There is some moss in the cave, which Šarac eats bit by bit, while the sabre slowly comes out of the rock. When it falls down after it completely emerges, and the horse eats all of the moss, Marko will awake and reappear in the world. Some people allegedly saw him after they descended into a deep pit, where he lived in a large house in front of which his horse was also seen. Others saw him in a faraway land, dwelling in a cave. According to a tradition from Macedonia, Marko drank of "eagle's water" which made him immortal, and he now accompanies Prophet Elijah in heaven.