Hidden jewels

More than a century ago one of the greatest Slovenian writers Ivan Cankar wrote a short novel called Kurent. Kurent is a creature from Slavic mythology, sometimes refered as the god of growth and hedonism. There are many fairy tells about Kurent in many Slavic countries. Most of them involve the story of Kurent obtaining magical objects from devil in exchange for his soul. With help of this toys Kurent manages to (temporarily) catch death and eventually makes even tricking devil himself. The traces of mythological Kurent can be seen today, when Kurent (represented by man doll) is a scape goat at Mardi Gras- being punished for his sins by death, the funeral being the high point of Mardi Gras. In NE Slovenia korant(i) are Mardi Gras characters dressed in sheep skin, with bells around their waists. The celebration of Mardi Gras there is called kurentovanje.
In Cankar's novel Kurent is transformed into travelling artist, musician and the representer of good things of the nation. As he travels around the country he notices the good and the bad things going on in Slovenia at the time of Cankar's writting. It is a deep novel, which has strong autobigraphical, national and social connotations. The starting chapter of the novel, called "Heavens bellow Triglav" is one of most beautiful praise to the homeland. I can't and won't translate the whole chapter, since it's big and my English is not up to task. But basically the narrator says how at the time of Genesis God was travelling the Earth with sack full of natural wonders- beautifull mountains, lush valleys, islands and other natural monuments. By the time he reached lands bellow Triglav the sack was all but empty of big things. So he emptied all that was left in the sack- loads of wonders that weren't big, but often even more beautiful. And since there were many in the sack, Slovenia was full of them....
It is to often that we search something far away, although we have it under our nose. One of these things is Iški vintgar- the canyon of Iška river, only 20 km from Ljubljana. Can you believe such beauty can be found only a short drive from gray concrete?

Iški vintgar