What’s with the goat?
Zlatorog: the goat, the myth, the beverage, the soap
Alert readers will have noted a goat-like creature haphazardly ’shopped into the header. That animal is the Zlatorog, or Goldenhorn, a mythical version of the regularly-horned chamois that roam the high mountains in these parts. He’s a figure I feel a certain affinity for, and have been meaning to say something about for some time. He’s everywhere you look, and not just because of his mythical origin. The myth comes with certain variations, but generally includes the themes of purity, love, jealousy, greed, revenge, creation, and death. Like any good fairytale should. Synopsis:
Magical goat with horns of gold roams pristine peaks, guards massive treasure;
Poor young hunter competes with rich merchant from Venice for love of innkeeper’s pure & lovely daughter;
Wicked stepmother of IP&LD prefers match with RMfV, naturally. Sends PYH on impossible task: bring back the golden horns of Zlatorog! Oh, and that treasure, too.
PYH fails to kill Zlatorog, but manages to wound and enrage him. Drops of blood provide genesis of alpine wildflowers, rage provokes Zlatorog to gouge out beautiful Triglav Lakes Valley (with still-intact horns, naturally);
PYH is blinded by glare from shiny thrashing horn mayhem, falls into gorge and returns to IP&LD with spring melt via Soča River. Not alive, naturally.
Zlatorog is disgusted, leaves the area never to return.
Venice continues to sink, as it does to this day.
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His memory lives on here through the beer that bears his name, Zlatorog brand pivo from brewing giant Laško. Your beer-drinking choices are quite limited in Slovenia, and as noted previously you need to decide which side you will support, Laško or Union. Never mind that the former bought the latter recently, nor that the differences between them are minimal. Any time you get two Slovenes together to drink, you will get a heated debate about which of these two local beers is better. Or to be more accurate, which one is for drinking, and which one is the result of drinking the other one — a common pub witticism which never fails to slay is “I drink Laško and piss Union” . This debate has been followed extensively by my beefcake esteemed colleague at The Glory of Carniola, specifically here, here, and here, and probably in several other places as well, so I won’t rehash it.
The image above is a label from a bottle of Zlatorog that must have had some shelf-life on it when I drank it several weeks back, because Laško ill-advisedly redesigned all their packaging over a year ago and this is the old-skool design. I still rail against their new look, but who listens? The old-style can was a design tour-de-force in stark black, white, and kelly green, sadly updated now to an overly-busy silver thing with all different shades of green and a goat that looks decidedly, there’s no other word for it, fey.
Since the Laško makeover there’s been a shortage of quality chamois images in the consumer goods department. On a recent trip to Ljubljana I was delighted to find an ancient wooden soapbox with a goaty label:
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It’s a pity and a marketing travesty that Zlatorog brand turpentine soap no longer seems to be available. I know I’d use it. As a people we have gotten soft, and with that has come a steady decrease in willingness to use turpentine-based soaps to remove stubborn dirt and skin. At left we have another rendition of the goat motif, this one in local limestone. This is in Piran, on Slovenia’s coast and about as far from the natural habitat of Zlatorog as you can get in this country. I have no explanation for what a mountain goat relief is doing overlooking the Adriatic and am open to ideas. Rounding out our Zlatorog collection below is a photo of the bronze statue of the Zlatorog on the shores of Lake Bohinj. For convenience I have included a wife for scale, so you can see that the animal is roughly life-sized, although one assumes the original Zlatorog was somewhat more massive and imposing. The clouds above the nearby foothills obscure Triglav, Slovenia’s highest peak and the mythical home of the Zlatorog and his immense treasure.
That’s all I know about the Zlatorog. Now I find that I am thirsty.
I want to know why you insist on making us look at the goat’s butt. My quality of life is not improved one whit by any amount of goat butt viewing.
(”Goat butt” makes me giggle for some reason. But I want to go on record as saying that “Goat Butt” would not – repeat NOT – make a good name for a band.)
Comment by Jane — Thursday 16 March 06 @ 15.35 MST+2.00
The including-wife-for-scale thing doesn’t work unless we know EXACTLY the size of said wife. For all we know, she’s a fucking midget.
No offense, of course, to the lovely and wondrous Magda.
Comment by jdog — Thursday 16 March 06 @ 19.17 MST+2.00
[...] ing photography, drug stores, propeller arms, Henry Rollins, thermometers, goat butts, not models, blogging, bad (but adorable) dogs, and other things I won’t mention here. I’ve a [...]
Pingback by Hillbilly, Please » Blog Archive » Rhinovirus — Friday 17 March 06 @ 01.50 MST+2.00
Hey, no one’s got a gun to your head, Jane. You don’t have to look at the butt. Why not admire the lovely horns?
Sorry I forgot to mention that the wife included for scale is 170 cm high — not much help when only her head and shoulders appear in the photo unless you also know that her head is proportional to her height.
Though this is beside the point, she is also pleasingly symmetrical.
Comment by sgazzetti — Friday 17 March 06 @ 06.50 MST+2.00
True, so I shall endeavor to do just that and see if admiring “the lovely horns” does anything for me.
…
Ah yes. That’s better. I am now taller AND smarter.
Comment by Jane — Friday 17 March 06 @ 07.38 MST+2.00
laško je najboljše
Comment by peter — Thursday 13 April 06 @ 20.31 MDT+2.00