On Padarji – Slovenian Folk Healers
Folk healing, known in Slovenian as “padarstvo”, was an essential element of rural life from the early modern period well into the 19th century—and, in some places, even into the mid-20th century. Padarji filled the gap that existed due to the chronic shortage of trained physicians on the Slovenian countryside. As Tone Košir and Milan Dolenc have shown, these healers were self-taught practitioners who relied on experience, inherited knowledge and, importantly, handwritten healing manuals that circulated from village to village.
Padarji were not officially educated, nor did they belong to the medical profession. Their practice drew on local herbal knowledge, wound care, empirical observation, and—particularly in older manuscripts—protective charms and prayers. They treated both people and livestock. Because villagers had limited or no access to doctors, padarji became trusted figures within their communities, and their reputation was built on the practical results of their work rather than on formal training.
Even though we know relatively little about the exact daily routines of padarji, the surviving sources make one thing clear: padarstvo was deeply woven into the rhythm and reality of rural life. When illness struck, families often sought the closest available help—sometimes a midwife, sometimes a knowledgeable neighbor, and very often a padar whose skills had been tested within the community over generations.
A Family Story: Folk Healing Still Alive in 1945
The endurance of folk healing traditions is illustrated by a story from my own family. My grandmother Jožefa Trnovšek gave birth to a son in the final months of the Second World War. When the baby developed persistent, inconsolable crying, she had no access to a physician—neither transport nor medical services were available in the chaos of 1945.
In desperation, she carried her infant for more than two hours on foot to reach a local padar in Primskovo, hoping he might help. Despite the healer’s efforts, the child did not recover. The episode shows that folk healers remained a living and relied-upon part of rural Slovenian society long after modern medicine had been formally established. For many families, especially in remote areas, padarji were still the only reachable source of advice or treatment.
The Tradition of Handwritten Healing Manuals
A distinctive feature of padarstvo were the handwritten manuals, known as “padarske bukve”. These manuscripts preserved practical treatments, herbal recipes, and sometimes short instructions for caring for the sick. The most influential of these texts were composed by Pavle Lipič, a farmer and healer from Bodovlje near Škofja Loka, around 1810. As Košir documents, more than fifty surviving copies of Lipič’s manuals and their derivatives have been identified in Gorenjska, Rovte and Žiri, making the region one of the richest centres of such material in Slovenia — and I am fortunate to be the owner of one such manuscript myself.
The manuscript that inspired this blog series, “Bukve zdravilstva”, was copied in 1880 by Alojz Brvar from Toplice near Zagorje. Brvar’s transcription belongs to this widespread tradition of villagers copying earlier books for their own use or for others. These manuals formed a written backbone of folk healing: practical, portable and adapted to local needs, at a time when official medical literature was inaccessible to most rural people.
The Significance of Padarstvo Today
Padarstvo offers a window into the everyday challenges and resilience of our rural ancestors. It reflects a world in which communities depended on their own knowledge, experience and mutual support. Padarji and their handwritten books were not simply healers and texts—they were part of a communal survival system, shaped by limited resources but rich in tradition.
This blog series will continue by exploring specific themes from these healing manuals, including herbal medicine, childbirth practices in the 18th and 19th centuries, and how villagers managed illness in a world without modern healthcare.