The
hill of Boljun had settlement long before Romans came, to get by in
hot climate with scarce springs local people built water cisterns on
top of the hill and most probably the name came from it: Bagnoli
=> Boljun as a Slavic form. The exact etymology is unknown though
but cisterns still exist and were in use during the whole history.
From Romans we still can see an altar in front of the village church
from about 1. century AD, and a few houses and the fort have based on
Romans constructions.
First
recorded description name Boljun as a castle with church and several
houses around, it comes from year 1102 in ownership transfer document
when the whole area become property of Aquileia patriarchy.
Owing to
its command of the passes between Učka, Pazin and the Raša valley,
Boljun was repeatedly threatened by many enemies incl. local nobles
as everyone wanted to be in control of the way. That is the reason we
have the castle survived till today: at every time in history people
use it as refuge, it was constantly rebuild, repaired, reenforced by
every owner.
Today it
belongs to the the Municipality of Lupoglav (town nearby) and open
for public for free whole year round.
Through
its history full of battles and sieges the castle've got lots of
standard legends about hidden treasures of the castle owners or the
occupiers; there are of course bunch of white ladies roaming castle
walls waiting for their brave knights forever; or stories how
besieged people of Boljun outsmarted enemies by pretending they have
plenty of food by showing off how they feed loads of the best corn to
the bull (although both the corn and the bull were the very last
eatables they have left) – but it worked and siege was ended or so
we are told. All these stories are very similar to other castles all
over Europe.
The
local legends are more of folklore nature and do not involve the
castle in particular but telling us how people were living in the
area: aparently here they were under protection of krsnici
(godmothers)
– the good witches, who fight the striguni – the evil witches who
harm people and livestock. These two groups are having battles on
earth, under water and on air using their magical skills, and –
obviously – the good ones always win therefore the cattle multiply
and harvests are abundant.
Here as
well lived an industrious giant Ban Dragonja, who was ploughing his
land so hard he made rivers – all the streams near Boljun are
result of his work.From above: Boljun, Istra
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