Gypsy's Curse
"Then she took out a bean, some string and some rusty scissors from her bag, and when she had mixed it all up and turned it over, she continued..."
The following is an excerpt from the novel "The White Nettle", the novelized biography of Slava Raškaj. In it, the author Nada Iveljić talks in a fictional manner about the prophecy of Slava Raškaj's fate uttered at her birth:
"That gypsy asked us to make her black coffee, and then she looked at the grounds and just said: 'Fish'. When you asked what that meant, she replied: 'Dear lady, I'd rather not tell you.' (...)
- Then she took out a bean, some kind of thread and rusty scissors from her bag, and when she had mixed it all up and turned it over, she continued: 'I see three female judges in the old Ozalja tower. In the village of Vrhovci there is a woman who has given birth. They wait (...) the third morning after the birth of the child, to go and determine his fate.' As for us, another woman in labor, I said. 'It concerns you and how, because they visited your house as well. (...)' Then you asked: 'Why did you mention the fish?' 'Because that's what one of the judges says,' said the gypsy woman. You called her back and she told how the three sisters are arguing about what fate they will give your child. (...)
– ... let her be a beauty, said the first. I will give her a beautiful face and slender figure, blue eyes and golden hair. (...)
- But the other judge, according to the words of that cursed Gypsy woman who (...) was nothing but the incarnation of the witch Dora Lagenka who was burnt in Ozalje, (...) said: 'And I make her unhappy. She will be deaf and dumb.' 'Sister, what are you doing?' objected the first fairy. 'Retract the word!' 'I can't and I won't. At least he won't hear the lies of the world or respond to those vile lies with words of love and tenderness. You see it's not so bad', the judge laughed evilly. And the third said: 'I have the power to mitigate the evil that one of you has inflicted. (...) I say: Let the glory belong to the future girl. She will be an artist, let's say a painter, a queen in her work. She will find the meaning of life in work, with glory she will destroy the evil that our sister gave her.' 'So be it,' the two answered her, 'but know, you have given her an even worse fate. To be a woman and an artist in the world we see is a living doom!'"
On the same day, Slava's father met a gypsy woman. She found him hunting, which was forbidden in winter, and told him ominously that his child's ears would hang like the ears of the rabbit he was holding while he was still alive. After many years, he entrusted this to his wife's doctor. Jana comforts Mrs. Olga that Slava's artistic journey was not in vain. Carrying her easel and painting accessories around Ozalj, she witnessed her creative happiness."
Taken from: Iveljić, N. "White Nettle: Romanced Biography of Slava Raškaj" Zagreb: Svitava. in 2008
