Ana, Queen of the Keshalyi

High on a mountain, where three fairy women sit on a rock and let their hair stream a mile down into the valleys, the mist that fills those valleys is their hair. Above them, in a black palace cut into the rock, lives their queen. Her name is Ana, and nearly everything known about her comes from one man: Heinrich von Wlislocki (1856 to 1907), a self-taught Transylvanian ethnographer who printed her story in German in *Aus dem inneren Leben der Zigeuner*, a book whose preface he signed at Jegenye in Transylvania on 1 November 1891. He says he had it from tent-dwelling Roma of southern Hungary and Serbia. Nobody before him wrote it down, and nobody independent of him has written it down since.

That matters, because Wlislocki is one of the most argued-over names in Romani studies. He published most of his material in German translation without the Romani originals, and did not follow the field standards of his day. In 2023 the scholar Vassilkov, writing in *Romani Studies*, put the question plainly: was this collection fantasy, mystification, or non-Romani material dressed as Romani? Many specialists are now highly critical of him, while others still treat the work as trustworthy. Ana sits right at the centre of that argument, as queen of the tidy pagan court that circulates in English as “the Romani pantheon”. What follows is Wlislocki’s report, told as his report.

In his account Ana owes her name to a habit. When a traveller loses the path in her mountains she calls out to him, “Ana!”, which Wlislocki reads as “bring!”. Anyone who understands the cry grabs the first frog, beetle or insect to hand, flings it into the nearest bush, and runs. Anyone who does not is smashed under a great stone. Her subjects, the Keshalyi, visit her only as a duty. Every day three of them must come to the black palace and each draw a drop of blood from her own left hand for the queen to drink. Without it Ana dies, and without Ana the Loçolico would eat every Keshalyi alive.

The Loçolico explain the bargain. They were once human beings whom the devil twisted into hideous shapes, and many thousands of years ago, when Ana was still a young girl, their king fell in love with her. She refused him and shut herself inside her impregnable palace of black rock. The Loçolico answered by falling on the other Keshalyi and eating some of them. Out of pity for her people, Ana married the king.

She would not look at him or kiss him, and she told him he would never share her bed. The king wandered the forest in misery until he found a toad with a golden belly and caught it as a present for his wife. The toad spoke in a human voice: feed her the brain of a magpie, it said, and she will sleep, and you may do as you like, but she will bear you an ugly son. Then the toad vanished, because the toad was Ana herself. The king caught his magpie, Ana slept, and in time she gave birth to Melalo, a tiny grey bird with two heads and claws that cut like razors, whose fog drives people mad. The father made good use of the boy afterwards: whenever he wanted his wife, he had Melalo fly over his mother’s head until she fell asleep.

Eight more children followed, each conceived through some fresh piece of trickery or bodily misfortune, and each a disease. Lilyi, a slimy fish-girl, brings coughs and dysentery. Tçulo and his wife Tçaridyi torment women in pregnancy and childbirth. Shilalyi, the cold one, came out of Ana’s mouth rather than her womb, and her mother hates her for it. Bitoso, Lolmisho the red mouse, and Minceskre follow, and the ninth and last is Poreskoro, the tailed one. Wlislocki’s Danube tellers say Ana never loved the king and so hated all her children. Poreskoro was so monstrous that even his father was frightened, and the king struck a pact to be rid of the whole household: he would leave Ana forever if she handed over every Keshalyi who reached the age of 999. She agreed. He left.

Since then Ana has lived alone, leaving the palace now and then in the shape of a toad. Elsewhere in the same book Wlislocki says she roams the world as a frog, and that frogs, toads and snakes are her favourite creatures. Her children bred among themselves and filled the world with lesser demons, each carrying a weaker share of its parents’ malice. This, the tellers said, is why the same illness strikes one person hard and another lightly.

The strongest thing in Wlislocki’s account is not the story but the objects he describes. A tent-dwelling family in southern Hungary kept a three-sided walking staff carved by the headman’s grandfather early in the nineteenth century, after six of his children died of cholera in a single week. Its brass-ringed head showed two women’s faces, both said to be Ana, with snakes beneath them and a crowd of frogs linking them, and on its three faces were burned three clumsy words: *sastyar*, *amenge*, *Ana*. Help us, Ana. The last little son lived. In autumn 1890 Wlislocki saw a hut in southern Hungary whose whitewashed front was painted in blue with a repeating frieze of devil, Ana and horse’s head, renewed every Good Friday to guard the family and its animals. He also records that tent Roma of Transylvania and Romania called garlic *armin Anakri*, Ana’s herb, and that a spell against stomach cramps offers garlic to the demons on behalf of their grandmother.

Her powers, in this record, are the powers of a hostage. She commands the Keshalyi but must drink their blood to live. She mothered every sickness, yet hates her own brood, and she paid for her people’s lives with a treaty that feeds them to their enemies one by one. The protection against her is simple and a little absurd: throw her something that crawls, and keep moving.

The record has limits worth stating. Wlislocki himself admits that the Transylvanian tent Roma he knew no longer remembered the disease demons by name. The one later Romani telling, written around 1955 by the Moravian Romani scholar Rudolf Daniel and published by Nina and Jiří Pavelčík in *Asian Folklore Studies* in 2001, most probably took its core from Wlislocki’s 1892 book, as the Pavelčíks themselves conclude. Ana’s cry, her blood tribute and her treaty are, in the end, one man’s notebook.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Ana in Romani folklore?

Ana is the queen of the Keshalyi, mountain fairy women, in the account published by the ethnographer Heinrich von Wlislocki in 1892. She lives alone in a black palace high in the mountains. She is best known as the unwilling wife of the king of the Loçolico and the mother of nine disease demons.

Is Ana a genuine Romani tradition?

Ana is attested only in the work of Heinrich von Wlislocki (1856 to 1907), who said he recorded her among tent-dwelling Roma of southern Hungary and Serbia. Many Romani studies specialists are highly critical of Wlislocki’s methods, and no independent source records her. The one later Romani retelling, by Rudolf Daniel around 1955, most probably drew on Wlislocki’s book.

Why did Ana marry the king of the Loçolico?

Ana refused the Loçolico king and locked herself in her black rock palace. The Loçolico then attacked the other Keshalyi and ate some of them. Ana married the king out of pity for her subjects, to stop them being devoured.

What are the children of Ana?

The children of Ana are nine disease demons: Melalo, Lilyi, Tçulo, Tçaridyi, Shilalyi, Bitoso, Lolmisho, Minceskre and Poreskoro. Each brings a different kind of illness, from Melalo’s madness to Lilyi’s coughs and dysentery. Poreskoro, the ninth, was so hideous that his father left Ana for good.

How do you protect yourself from Ana?

In Wlislocki’s account, Ana calls out “Ana!” to travellers lost in her mountains. Anyone who understands the cry should throw a frog, beetle or insect into the nearest bush, or run. Anyone who does neither is crushed with a great stone.

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