God’s Cock in Wratislaw’s Carniolan tale

Overview

The tale begins with a stony, barren earth. God sends his cock to make it fruitful, and the bird enters a rocky cave and fetches an egg of wondrous power. The egg chips and seven rivers flow from it, irrigating the land. Flowers, fruit and grain appear, while trees bear bread as well as fruit. The cock brings out the egg; the text does not say that he lays it. It supplies no unusual number of heads or limbs, and no detailed plumage or breed-like description. His extraordinary role is in the creation of a fertile world and its order.

The cock then hovers high in the sky and crows to tell people when to rise, eat and act. The people initially prosper but grow annoyed by the continual crowing. They ask God to free them from the bird’s interference. When the cock descends from the sky he gives a final warning to beware of the lake. At first the inhabitants continue the order he taught them, but gradually abandon it. Within the story’s moral account, illness and distress follow. They long for the cock again, yet the narrative says he has gone for ever; it does not bring him back to punish them.

The warning is misunderstood because there is no lake in their valley. People suppose one must lie beyond the mountains and send a watcher uphill. As no danger appears, they stop taking it seriously. Eventually they decide that they should break the egg and direct its water to their own plots. A man strikes it with a stone. Water bursts out so violently that almost everyone perishes and the paradise itself becomes a great lake. The cock’s warning proves true, but the flood follows the breaking of the egg, not a narrated attack by the bird.

The watchman alone is still alive when the rising water reaches his mountain, and the selected tale ends as he flees. The next separately numbered story, Kurent the Preserver, continues with a sole survivor named Kranyatz, rescued on a vine that Kurent lengthens above the flood. That continuation is retained as context, without identifying Kurent with the cock or importing his vine and wine associations into the bird’s form. This is a particular published mythic narrative, not a description of all Carniolan people’s beliefs or a modern practice.

Origins & earliest records

Wratislaw’s contents identify the tale as Bozhji Kokot and cite Neven, 1858, page 61. It appears within the historical heading Serbian Stories from Carniola; that heading is a feature of this compilation, not an assertion that historical Carniola is identical with a modern national border. The preface identifies Erben’s 1865 Čítanka as the intermediate anthology for Wratislaw’s English selection. The section introduction preserves Professor Krek’s explicitly tentative interpretation of Kurent, which is context for neighbouring stories rather than proof that the cock is Dionysus or a present ceremonial figure. No earlier Neven text or Erben anthology has been independently consulted.

Records & interpretation

Complete selected English narrative and its ending retained with the full preface, contents attribution and historical section introduction. Original native HTML is byte-pinned; review text changes whitespace only.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Sixty Folk-Tales from Exclusively Slavonic Sources

   Albert Henry Wratislaw, translator and compiler · 1889

   Complete selected English tale, ending, printed notes and historical section context. Preface identifies mediation through Erben’s 1865 anthology; earlier-language sources not independently consulted.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Original historical English translation, retained native publication witnessWratislaw 1889 — complete selected narrative and source contextResearch access: 2026-10-18

Image credits

AI-generated reconstruction of the cock in Wratislaw’s Carniolan tale.

The cock and rocky-cave mission are textual. Exact plumage, colouring, proportions and pose are imagined; the narrative’s egg-fetching is not shown as egg-laying.