The fairy and the stone

Once upon a time the fairies carried those heavy

Stones, a young fairy was carrying one

But she got tired, so to rest she put it on a hill,

But when the fairy tried to lift the stone, she couldn’t.

driven by her anger she scratched the surface,

from there came the signs on the stone which

can also be seen today.

Nekada davno vile su raznosile to

kamenje. Mlada vila nosila je onaj teški

kamen i kad se umorila.

spustila ga na uzvišenje da se odmori.

Poslije ga nije mogla podići, pa je od

ljutine grebla po njemu. Otuda i danas

tragovi na kamenu.

 

This is apparently a very short and simple story and probably is not even complete, because of its simplicity would have been probably overlooked by most of us but we can find a few very important details in this story that can help us to understand it deeply.

Vila is the local name for fairy it’s derived from the PIE*uel that means Death, tear or wound, many figures and deities in our European mythology that are connected to death and the underworld share the same root name like for example “Veles” the chthonic god in Slavic mythology or the “Valhöll” (hall of the slain) in Norse mythology, from this example we can understand that fairies are directly connected to the chthonic aspect in our tradition and represent the ancestral spirits ( they carry the identical symbology as Elves).

Little details are always important , in the tale it is said a Young fairy was carrying a stone, the fact that she is young could make us think that she is still a maiden a virgin ( not in the modern interpretation of the word) so in this situation the stone is light and easy to carry, suddenly it has become heavy so the Fairy put it on a hill/mount to rest but when she tries to lift it, she couldn’t do it anymore.

When in our tales appears the symbol of the mount it has always a very precise meaning, it is no coincidence that burial sites in Europe were often literal mount (hence the name “burial mount”), the mount is like the tombstone itself a symbol for the womb, the stone that the fairy is carrying has become heavy because that is the symbology used to explain that now she is pregnant with her child.

The tales continues by saying the fairy gets angry because she is not able to lift the stone anymore, so driven her fury she scratches the surface of that same stone leaving some marks on it, the story use the emotion of anger in a symbolical way in reality it wants to represents adrenaline, this hormone is very important for child birth (in our myths Gods like Pan and Veles are supposed to be scary because they symbolize this special hormone, when we experience fear or anger we release high levels of adrenaline).

The fairy is going through a metamorphosis, from the beautiful young girl she is transforming in a ferocious creature and with her claws she scratches the bare rock as if she had become a troll or maybe the best option would be a bear since cave bears in Europe used to leave marks of their claws on the walls of the caves, so we are now like transported inside the cave or better inside the womb and we need adrenaline/fear/ anger to be born.

If the tale was not yet clear to you well this tales is symbolically showing a childbirth so in conclusion we can say the story alludes to some kind of rebirth/reincarnation, the fairy symbolize the ancestor that metaphorically enters in a metamorphosis becoming a she-bear when she start her pregnancy (the tombstone and the hill symbolize the womb) he needs the spark of life, the adrenaline to give birth to himself and be reborn.