The making of ‘Moon Shadows’ – the collection of stories about dark creatures.

Witchfinders of old tended to hunt down and persecute witches for their supposed crimes and transgressions. More often than not, these were innocent women versed in herbal lore. And we all know how much terror a wise and able woman could strike into men in power. The witches have always been a subversive element to a supposed order of society that rested on keeping the knowledge reserved for the elites.

The Stories of Hexes

The stories of hexes have never lost their sway over us, whether through terrifying works of fiction or exaggerated, pantomime-like caricatures we find in films and books for younger audiences. The archetypal image of a witch remains the same: a dark-robed, broom-riding hag with a wide-brimmed, wonky and pointed hat.

A Benevolent Witchfinder

Zdenko Bašić, a multimedia artist who has already proven himself as a collector of tales of fairies and other woodland creatures in his collection ‘The Tales of the Wind’, is a much more benevolent witchfinder.

Tales of the Witching Hour

His self-appointed task is not to hunt these witches, and other murky and frightening creatures, such as warlocks, dark walkers, hexes, yagars, mares, and the unseen, but to trace the tales about them and thus, in a way, preserve these creatures from oblivion.

The fruits of this so-called witch hunt are the second collection of soon-to-be-published stories translated into English by the author of this article, Filip Krenus: ‘Moon Shadows – Tales of the Witching Hour’.

The Roots

Zdenko Bašić has written and illustrated tales he has been collecting for more than two decades.
The roots of his passion stem from the stories told to him by his grandmothers. He then expanded his search to the entire region of Northwestern Croatia.

Creatures of Northwestern Croatia

While his first collection offers a glimpse into the world and habits of benevolent fairies, this second book – which has proven to be a huge publishing hit in Croatia and Southeastern Europe – now offers another collection of much darker and frightening tales of witches, warlocks, murks and other hitherto unknown creatures of the Northwestern Croatia, where tales and legends have a unique blend of Celtic and Slavic mythology.

Northwestern Wind

Zdenko here tackles creatures that almost defy all classification. They dwell in a dimension wedged between dreaming and waking. And these yagars, mares and the unseen do not look too kindly to humans. Some of them even have an appetite for us. They will feed on humans, drain their strength, or even steal milk from their bodies if they get even a glimpse of a chance.

The Northwestern wind is Zdenko’s eternal metaphor and inspiration. He sees it as a mythic force of an unknown origin, whose gusts bring both dread and inspiration, and travel between the worlds. It hoots and blows through this collection as well, but brings us tidings of dark deeds and creatures.

A Treasure Trove of Folk Tales

‘Moon Shadows’ can be best described as a treasure trove of folk tales and beliefs of Northwestern Medvednica mountain (whose name, translated into English, literally means Bear Mountain), and the Samobor region in Croatia. All these tales are, in fact, family heirlooms and are treated with exquisite care to detail, as they have been passed down from generation to generation.

And Zdenko has been immersed in them ever since his early childhood. So, just like with ‘The Tales of the Wind’, this collection can be seen both as a Brothers Grimm-like collection of tales and his personal journey through the stories of childhood. And those stories never stop haunting us.

Dark Tales for the Dark Hours of the Night

The tales he offers us here are the ones best reserved for the late of the night when elders tended to frighten their children into beds.
Yet, this dark web of tales also offers a rare, fast-vanishing insight into the traditions that many followed and were witnessed by the author himself.

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Shadowy, Twilight Regions of the World

Fairy stories are an amorphous group of tales that actually contain very few fairies. They are about the world of Faery.

‘Moon Shadows’ takes us to the shadowy, twilight regions of that world, reflecting cruel and frightening aspects of folk beliefs and healing practices, but also sprinkled with humor that plays around our understanding of good and evil.

Zdenko retells these stories with great care, offering solace in our all-too-frightening world.

Crafting objects, making props, and sewing the costumes

All of Zdenko’s books are fully illustrated in color. An illustration might be an oversimplified term for the technique employed: ‘Moon Shadows’ was made using a digital collage technique.
Just as a painter uses his brush and colors, so Zdenko Bašić builds the shadowy by meticulously crafting objects, making props, sewing the costumes, painting the models, and setting the stage for the finished scenes that are photographed.

A Tiny Abandoned Village

In a tiny abandoned village at the end of a forgotten road, in the remotest corner of Croatia, Zdenko found a location where he could build the complete set of a witches’ village and where the actors and collaborators helped create the composites for this wondrous book.

‘Hark, would-be shadow-treaders!’

This collection begins with the words: ‘Hark, would-be shadow-treaders!’ It is a stark warning that the reader is about to enter a dark world with surprising comical twists.

All his works are crafted with a love for beauty that he finds in the most unusual and unexplored places. This is a labor of love for often unlovable creatures – witches.

Join him in his journey of this superb collection unlike any other, and delve into a deep well of witches’ tales.

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