Are there still Klek witches?

Klek mountain near Ogulin has been attracting travelers and explorers for centuries, and the peculiar appearance of its peak stirs the imagination like no other peak in Croatia. It shows a different shape on each side, and the peak rock stands out.

At the end of the 19th century, the historian and writer Rudolf Strohal wrote down folk tales and myths about the Klek witches in the form of stories. The heroines of the stories, the witches from Klek, cook mysterious herbs and oils, rub themselves with them, fly to Klek, devastate inns, dance witches’ dances for hours in circles, kill husbands, and devour children… and engage in all sorts of other witchcraft and wickedness.

Witches from Klek, Photo: Adria fun

One of the witches, however, according to folk legend, was turned into rock. At the entrance to the village of Bjelsko at the foot of Klek there is a mushroom-like rock, which the people call (Visi) Baba.

And so the myth about witches was born, on this extremely beautiful mountain and a destination for many hikers, which lives on to this day!

Witches, Photo: Sierra Koder

The myths that Strohal recorded as folklore are actually statements of poor and falsely accused women of being witches at actual witch trials in northwestern Croatia (but also in Europe) during the 17th and 18th centuries. Klek was often mentioned as the place of their meetings in witches’ confessions at those trials.

Some of the women convicted of being Klek witches ended their lives at the bonfire, they were accused of making a contract with the devil and consorting with him, turning people into animals, destroying the harvest, seducing their husbands, but also being herbalists and practicing “pagan” treatment and healing.