Beauty and diversity of the landscape between the Pešter silent wasteland and splashy, powerful Lim, history charged with upheavals, movements of merchants, armies and people have influenced the emergence of numerous tales, legends and stories, and ample spoken cultural heritage.

Legends created in the central Polimlje, in the regions of Bihor, Korita and Pešter, take us back to the times of lake monsters, medieval towns- fortresses, eastern and western emperors of great ambitions, dreams of monks and dervishes, bottomless pits and caves full of treasure. Imagination and parts of real events and real beings intertwine in them. Love and jealousy and demonstration of power. Courage and inevitability.

Jarinja’s town

A Turkish emperor tried to win over, by grace, the empress Jarinja who ruled the deserted area next to the fast river, but she wouldn’t give in, so he sent Haydar pasha with his army to defeat her, by force.  Pasha arrived to the village Raduliće, but when he met the empress, he decided to ally with her.

The emperor sent Ćor pasha then, to punish the traitor and send his head to Istanbul. Ćor pasha stopped in Lozna with his army, Haydar pasha met him there and he captured him easily. But he was reluctant to kill him, so he beheaded one of his servants, who resembled him, and sent his head to Istanbul.

Then he went up to the hill and started battling Jarinja. The battle lasted for a long time but he couldn’t defeat her. Then, one of Jarinja’s men killed two of his relatives in a fight and, afraid of being punished, he fled to the Turks. Pasha wanted to cut him immediately, but the escapee promised him help in entering Jarinja’s town.

Listening to the advice of the deserter, pasha’s men made 30 chests and loaded them on 15 horses and started towards Jarinja’s town on Easter, while the empress was in a church in Valjevac. The guards on ramparts noticed them and asked them who they were. They answered that they brought help to their empress, and entered the town easily. Jarinja’s men approached the horsemen to help them unload the chests, but their foes jumped out of them and killed them all. Then they signaled Ćor pasha by a shot from the flintlock that they entered the fortress.

Upon hearing the shot, pasha stormed the church in Valjevac and killed Jarinja. Then he settled in Lozna and started ruling entire Polimlje. His numerous descendants, Ćorović, remained here, some of them live in Trubina, named after pasha’s trumpeters.

Haydar pasha lived in Radulici with his offsprings.

To preserve the memory of the courageous empress Jarinja, the people named her town, close to Berane, Jarinja, and the rock under it, Jarinja’s boulder.

Bihor: Jerina’s downfall

There are several legends about the origin of the name Bihor. The most famous one says that the name is related to the cursed Jerina, who allegedly owned a large fortress on the right bank of the river Lim. An Austrian emperor surrounded the fortress once, but he couldn’t take it. Then he resorted to a trickery. He made an agreement with Jerina and, as a sign of friendship, delivered a hundred loads of grain on horseback. His army was hidden in the grain baskets, and when horses entered the fortress, his soldiers burst out, killed all the guards and took the town. When the cursed Jerina heard the news, she exclaimed: ‘Ja – Bih – Hor’, which meant she was publicly humiliated, someone outwitted her.

Mujo’s pit

During the period of summer heats, beys would go to a picnic on Kamena Gora, high above the river Lim, with their wives and servants. They would set up tents next to the Kovačica spring, the one that flows down the slope and into the hollow rock, then they would go hunting or they raced their horses along the meadows. Women used to sit in the shade, they sang and danced to the sound of dafs.

Only Mujo would stay with them, to help them if they needed anything. Everything went well until Mujo fell in love with the second wife of the oldest bey, who was newlywed. She also fell for the handsome young man, so they started meeting in secret in forest. The first bey’s wife could hardly wait to reveal this secret to her husband. Her hope was to remain the only wife.

The bey heard what she had to say but didn’t make any comment. Tomorrow morning, he invited Mujo to join him in a pigeon hunt.  When they came close to the rocks in Matija’s Omorike, he said:

“I would like to shoot in the target now.”

He sent the servant to place the target above the bottomless pit. When Mujo turned his back on him, he fired his rifle and Mujo just fell without a sound. The bey then pushed him into the pit and told everyone that the unfortunate man had slipped and fell into the pit.

This abyss was later named Mujo’s pit.

Musa’s pit

Musa’s pit legend is perhaps the most famous legend from the region.

Once upon a time, as was the custom then, a man from Rožaje proposed to a girl from Savin Bor for his son, Musa. Since it was winter already, the future in-laws agreed to organize the wedding on St. Nicolas day, for days were cold then but clear and without fog.

The man from Rožaje returned home in good mood. Beside hearing only good things about the girl, he also had a chance to see her. Her beauty completely enchanted him.

On the agreed day, early in the morning, he set off with seventy wedding guests and seven banners, riding on rested horses. The weather was nice, so they arrived to Savin Bor without problems. The in-laws welcomed them warmly, with a song and a scrumptious feast. When the time to leave came, bride’s brothers brought the sister outside, they handed her to the groom’s brothers and the women started singing: Go, go, and travel safe, you beautiful people…

But unfortunately, they had to go through the mountain, and these are never safe. As soon as they left the village, the sky darkened, it started snowing, with stormy northern winds blowing. Nothing could be seen ahead, not even the path. The blizzard blew directly into the horses’ eyes, so some of them started moving in circles, other moved randomly, with no orientation. They got lost, and stumbled upon a hitherto nameless pit, that descended vertically into an unimagined depth. The entrance was covered by snow, so they couldn’t notice it. As the path leading to the entrance was somewhat steep, and slippery from the snow, the horse of the first wedding guest, the banner bearer, blinded from the blizzard, dived straight into the pit, and the horse with the bride fell after them, too. The other guests followed, all but one, the last one, whose horse was very old, so he kept spinning in circles. When he finally managed to force the horse to go forward, the blizzard had already slowed down, so he could see that all the traces led to the pit.

When he returned to Rožaje and told them what had happened, there was no end to grief, especially in the groom’s house. Instead of a wedding, they had to organize a funeral.

The locals believed that the pit reached an underground lake, a source to several rivers. A legend says that a monk from the Sopoćani monastery went to take water from a spring in Raška some time later, when he saw a bride’s hand with a ring and her vail. The monk then, having heard about the tragedy, sent the ring to the groom called Musa to Rožaje. At the same time, a priest, who was blessing the water at Dobrodol, saw the water carrying a bride’s neckless made of ducats and a banner. He also delivered these to the groom.

The unfortunate groom was a sensitive and timid guy, so he could not come to terms with the great misfortune that befell him. One day, taking the bride’s ring with him, he went to the pit and jumped. The villagers named it then – Musa’s pit.

Bratimin vir – two brothers from two stories

Centuries-old legends in the Balkans, and especially those from the crossroads, such as those in Pešter and Polimlje, speak of large amounts of gold that remained hidden in caves, forests and next to springs.

Once upon a time, on the Popča River, near the place now called Bratimin Vir, there was a cave in which many treasures were hidden, but it was cursed. The glittering pots enticed all those who had know about this secret, even though everyone knew that it was not wise to take more than one pot.

But the cave was inaccessible. There was, admittedly, a pass over one cliff, but a waterfall and an abyss were below, so it was a one-way road. This ominous, cascading gorge would not allow even half of the pot to be taken away.

A thirst for glory forced two brothers, two courageous and skillful men, experienced highlanders, to go to the cave. But they remained there. Forever.  Pride would not let them return and fear stopped them from continuing further into the cave which was, probably, guarded by some kind of a ghost, the treasure keeper.

Another story says that two Montenegrin highlander families were in blood feud for generations. Each and every of their meetings ended tragically, they fought and retaliated. But they stubbornly refused any attempt at reconciliation.

One spring, two brothers happened to be near a waterfall, just as a young man was drowning in a whirlpool. The brothers jumped in to help the young man and saved his life.

When the young man’s family found out that the rescuers came from their enemy’s family, they decided to bury the hatchet. And not only that. Families that were enemies for generations, became blood brothers. The whirlpool was then named after the brothers whose humanity reconciled the two families – Bratimin vir (brother’s whirlpool).

Pot of silver coins

There used to be a cave in the midst of a steep stone, on the right bank of the river Lim, a beam covered in baize was placed across its entrance. People would watch it, but nobody believed it could be reached.

However, Pajsija, the abbot and an elder of the monastery Đurđevi stupovi, had a strange dream one night- a black ram came to him and told him: “Father Pajsija, go to the cave, take the treasure, mend the monastery”. He woke up, pondered how to climb so high and, when it dawned, rushed to visit shepherds living above the cave. He told them about the dream and asked them to weave ladders out of grass for him.

Shepherds immediately agreed and made ladders out of mountain grass. They tied them to a spruce and lowered them towards the cave. The abbot crossed himself, asked the God for help, took a candle and a pole and descended into the pit above the abyss.  He hooked the beam with a pole, lighted a candle and entered. When he made the first step inside, he saw a yellow snake on some pile. He grabbed the prayer book, read a couple of prayers but the snake didn’t move at all. Petrified, he stepped into the second chamber and saw the black ram. He felt the weakness in his leg and thought, how it was possible for a ram to be in such an inaccessible place. The ram raised his head and said in a human voice:

“Pajsije, the pot is over there, fill it with silver and go.”

The priest noticed the pile of silver coins only then, he filled the pot and started going out. The ram then remarked:

“Leave, Pajsije, don’t be afraid, I ordered the guard snake to sleep. But inform the people they should come here under no circumstances, whoever comes, will not leave”.

The abbot left the dark cave, tied the pot to a stair, the shepherds pulled the ladder and pot with it. The man of God told them what he had seen in the cave, gave each of them a handful of coins and took the treasure into the monastery.

Later, it was rumored by the locals that Pajsije took the silver and went to Kotor and left the empty pot to the monks, so that they could baptize the newborns from it.

Last wishes of the dervish from the village of Bioče

There was a cave in the village of Bioče, which served as a khanqah. Two sheikhs lived a solitary life there. People from Bioče rarely saw them, only on occasions when they went to the mosque to pray or when their brothers sent them halva through a friend travelling with caravans from Skadar, Peć or Sarajevo. Locals thought their way of life was strange, but what was even stranger was a testament they left on how to be buried when they die. One of them wished to be buried in the cemetery, in the harem part of the mosque, his grave should be made of stone, brought there by twin oxen, with twin brothers leading them, because otherwise, as he would say, the stone could not be brought there. Locals tried to do it as they thought was right, but indeed, when the time came for the bequest to be fulfilled, they saw there was no other way to move the stone except with twin oxen and twin brothers.

The other sheikh asked to be buried in the middle of the Lim riverbed, right there where the water was the most powerful and where no bridge could be built. People from Bioče thought it strange, and funny too: how to bury someone in the middle of that mighty water. When the old sheikh died, they set out towards the river. The moment they stepped into the river, all the water receded towards the left bank, and the cold water from a spring they had to use to perform the ceremony, suddenly got warm.  Then they carried the sheikh to the center of the river, and, at that exact moment, a grave appeared and they buried him following the religious rules. As soon as the congregation returned home, Lim returned to its riverbed, but instead of wild waters that used to be there, it started flowing steadily. Even today, some bright sparks can be seen glistening above his grave.

The khanqah cave still exists, and the carved trough, hammam, iron tripod, fireplace can still be seen. Although neglected, there are some traces of burned candles, lighted during the Ramadan by the pilgrims who visit the place.