Whoever visits Hrvatsko Zagorje only once, will fall in love with the gentle green hills that look so attractive as if skilled celestial chefs have decided to work on their best creations on them. As you drive along the road above Grešni gorice, which skilfully winds its way between the hills like a dancer, the main hero of this story will appear to you for a moment - the Veliki Tabor castle, located about 40 kilometers from Krapina. He would then take a short shelter behind the hill, only to reappear a few minutes later as some mischievous little boy in a game of hide-and-seek.
Every kilometer the castle becomes bigger and more impressive, until it appears in front of you in full size sitting like some old sage on a hill from which a view of "million dollars" spreads towards the meditative pastures and forests. Tabor means a war camp that was built to defend against invaders, primarily Turks, and today is a zero-category monument under UNESCO protection.
Its most famous owners in the past were the Counts of Celje, with whom the most famous legend of the Great Camp is connected - about Veronika Desinićka. The story begins in the 15th century when one day Fridrik Celjski, riding through the vast green expanses of Zagorje, met a beautiful but poor peasant Veronika who lived in Desinić not far from the Veliki Tabor castle.
During the restoration and cleaning of the Veliki Tabor castle near Desinić back in 1892, a skull was found among the ruins, which was later determined to be female. This skull could confirm the truth of the legend of unhappy love and an even more unhappy girl Veronica Desnicka.
This area was ruled by the powerful Ban Count "Herman II of Celje.
His young and stout son "Fridritch, riding his estates meets the beautiful country girl" Veronica ", and falls in love at first sight.
Her slender appearance, lush golden hair, full lips, her beautiful blue eyes - all this filled him with a longing to embrace this beautiful girl on his chest and to reveal his heart to her.
Veronica's thoughts, too, were filled with restlessness turned to Friedrich.
A mutual love erupted.
But the tender love of the two young men was not to the liking of the old and wicked Count Herman.
Despite his opposition, Fridrich and Veronika, determined in their love, fled to Friedrichchest's town in Slovenia. This city was built by the count for his son, so it was named after Friedrich.
In that city protected by large walls, young lovers secretly got married.
Unfortunately, their honeymoon did not last long. Old Count Herman found out where his son was hiding and immediately sent an army with an order to capture the young lovers.
Although the army surrounded the castle, Fridrich managed to save Veronika, and instructed her to flee through Gorski Kotar, Moslavina and Kalnik all the way to the small village of St. Margarita, where Veronika hid with a peasant where Fridrich himself slept when he returned from hunting.
Fridrich failed to escape his father's army, so he was returned to Veliki Tabor.
The enraged father did not even want to see him, but gave an order to the army to take the unfortunate son to Celje and lock him there in a high tower that was 8X8 m in floor plan and was about 23 m high. The tower has no roof, and the doors and windows are they built as soon as they threw the young man into the tower.
They left only a small opening through which they gave him food.
That is how Friedrich lived for four years. when his father freed him from prison.
Unfortunately, when he was released, he was completely mentally broken, and the tower was named after him "Friedrich's Tower" or in Slovenian "Fridrichov stolp".
Veronica was also unlucky. Herman's soldiers found out where she was hiding and took her to Veliki Tabor. There they imprisoned her in a small windowless prison, at the entrance to the city courtyard. Count Herman immediately summoned the lay judges and immediately condemned the unfortunate girl for being the "coprnica" witch who seduced his son.
The judges accepted the job and interrogated and tortured the girl for two days, only to make a decision at the end of the day, which they communicated to the count,
"Mr. Bane. There is no guilt on this girl, let alone a crime, the only thing that cultivates a great love for your son. Thus our work of the most glorious bane is over here."
After such a decision of the judges, Count Herman ordered his castellan of the court to drown Veronica immediately. The castellan immediately obeyed the ban and drowned Veronica in a barrel of water.
The dead body was built into the wall that connects the walls of the pentagonal tower with the entrance part. Veronica cried over her destiny and lost love, and that cry and sob still echoes today in the cold corridors of the old castle.
I like to read about things that happened a long time ago. I didn't know anything about her until now. Good article. Thank you, I enjoyed reading.