Beyond an old town perched on steep cliffs, beyond towering mountains and a vast sea, a little emerald lake shaped like a heart lies hidden in the heart of a forest. It is guarded by a yellow dragon, while a hoofprint in the rock near its shore recalls an ancient legend…
It sounds like a fairy tale, yet none of it is made up: the old town on the cliffs is Ogulin, the towering mountain is Klek, and the vast sea is Lake Sabljaci, affectionately known as the Sea of Ogulin. The dragon is an art installation inspired by the legend of a young woman rescued by St. George.
This little turquoise-emerald oasis in the forest is Schmit’s Lake (pronounced “SHMITS Lake”), known in Croatian as Šmitovo jezero (pronounced “SHMIT-oh-voh YEH-zeh-roh”). Once also known as Green Lake. It is so tiny that you can walk all the way around it in just five minutes, but you’ll surely stay much longer, simply sitting on a bench and soaking in the tranquility of nature.
The Spanish Baroque playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca wrote the famous lines: “What is life? A frenzy. What is life? Empty dreams, a hollow shadow that surrounds us… Oh, how little we are given, for all of life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams…“
These dreamlike reflections blend so gently into the silence and greenery around me, which, after all, is what reminded me of him in the first place. In fact, de la Barca paid a special tribute to the color green, calling it the world’s very first color, the one from which all its beauty springs.
Šmit’s Lake, a Natural Gem of Ogulin’s Fairy Tale Route
Šmit’s Lake actually consists of two lakes: the larger one is called Veliko (Big Lake), while the smaller one is Malo (Little Lake). According to some local stories, the Šmit who gave the lakes their shared name was a forest ranger, a warm and welcoming host who once lived here and whom people loved to visit (“Let’s go see Šmit!“).
Water reaches the lakes from the Rupećica sinkhole, seeping through cracks in the rock. When the water overflows from Little Lake into Big Lake, it disappears underground once again and continues its journey. But the lakes are small only at first glance. If we could see them in cross-section, beneath the surface, we’d discover that one is 7.5 meters (25 feet) deep, while the other plunges to an impressive 23 meters (75 feet). Deep enough to safely shelter a wealth of plant and animal life, including some endemic species found nowhere else in the world.
The rocky karst landscape and waters of this region are home to the olm, a mysterious cave-dwelling amphibian also known as the human fish, while deep in the lake’s dark waters, the Ogulin cave sponge quietly filters the water. This modest little cleaning lady lives in complete darkness and therefore has no pigment, going about her work unnoticed (as is usually the case with cleaning). And if you spot something sparkling in the water, it’s probably the common dace, a fish whose scales glitter like sequins in the sunlight.
Fairy Tales Are Real
The lake is the setting of a local legend, part of a story told and retold throughout the Christian world, in which St. George rescues a young woman from a dragon living in the lake. The hoofprint preserved in a rock beside the lake is said to be proof of the tale.
Its secluded location, beautiful surroundings, and the legend it holds were enough to earn the lake a place on the Fairy Tale Route, which connects 12 sites in and around Ogulin. Along the route, visitors will find art installations and information panels inspired by the fairy tales of Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić, a celebrated Croatian children’s author who was born in this region.
Perhaps you’re not the kind of person who believes in fairy tales, fantasy, and magical creatures. Neither am I. But in a world that seems to lose a little more of its magic with each passing day – a process sociologist Max Weber described as the “disenchantment” of the world, brought about by cold rationalization, that dragon which strips away the veil of magic from people, folklore, natural phenomena, art… – seeing the world once again through the eyes of a child is a small miracle in itself.
And yet, much like the shimmering fish in the dark depths of the lake, there are still playful spirits out there who, through their imagination, their ability to think outside the box, and their tireless belief in goodness, make the world a little brighter. And perhaps, just like those little shimmering fish, such spirits are more endangered than ever before. It’s up to us to protect them.
It sounds like a fairy tale, yet none of it is made up. A reminder is written on a sign right beside the lake:
Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
