The article discusses the images of St Christopher in a limited number of folk narratives originating in the Republic of Slovenia and this part of Austrian Carinthia settled by the Slovene minority. The discussed narratives are found in the following collections of folk narratives: France Kotnik, Storije I. Koroške narodne pripovedke in pravljice, 1924; Georg Graber, Sagen aus Kärnten, 1927; Wilhelm Tschinkel, Gottscheer Volkstum in Sitte, Brauch, Märchen, Sagen, Legenden und anderen volkstümlichen Überlieferungen, 1932, reprinted with the Slovene translation in 2004 and entitled as Kočevarska folklora v šegah, navadah, pravljicah, povedkah, legendah in drugih folklornih izročilih - Gottscheer Volkstum in Sitte, Brauch, Märchen, Sagen, Legenden und anderen volkstümlichen Überlieferungen; Anton Gričnik, Noč ima svojo moč, Bog pa še večjo, Pohorje pripoveduje, 1995; Martina Piko, Iz semena pa bo lipa zrasla. Pravlíce, storije in basmi s Koroške, 1996; Marta Orešnik, Vida Štiglic in Peter Weiss, Gori, doli, sem in tja. Folklorne pripovedi iz Zgornje Savinjske doline, 2013. The purpose of this article is to answer one fundamental question: in what way/if any do the narratives in question show deviations from the Christopher tradition as presented in the Golden Legend (the Legenda Aurea), a voluminous compendium of saints' lives, collected by the Dominican monk Jakobus de Voragine in the 1260s. In the Golden Legend, St Christopher is depicted as a giant carrying the infant Christ across a torrential river, with a blossoming rod in his hand. In order to raise the reader's awareness about the roots of the legend, the article dedicates considerable attention to the development of the Christopher traditions, beginning with the birth of the legend in the orthodox East - where the saint was often depicted as a dog-head - and ending with its integration into the medieval society of the West where Christopher is eventually regarded as the Christ-Bearer both literally and metaphorically. According to the Greek legend, the dog-headed saint served in the Roman army where he died a martyr's death. This version found its way into the European West where it survived primarily in its Latin adaptation. Another, more exotic Latin legend also emerged in the West, preserving the saint's cynocephaly and incorporating other narrative details not found in the two previously mentioned versions. Among others, it introduced the legendary king Dagnus instead of the historical emperor Decius found in the previous two accounts, emphasised St Christopher's exceptional height, 12 cubits, and provided a reconciliatory end: Dagnus is converted when his eyes are healed by the saint's blood. Western Europe obviously did not fi nd Christopher's cynocephaly attractive, as suggested by the lack of surviving pictorial representations of the dog-headed saint, with only one surviving exception. His earliest surviving image with a human face in the medieval West originates from the tenth century and his fi rst portrayal as a giant is preserved from the beginning of the eleventh century. In the twelfth and the fi rst half of the thirteenth century, the saint was beginning to be depicted as a giant carrying the adult Christ, who was often bearded, and it was not until the second half of the thirteenth century that he was beginning to be depicted as a giant carrying the Christ Child over a torrential river, the version which was promoted by the Golden Legend and which has retained its popularity ever since. In Slovenia, like in other parts of the European West, Christopher was one of the most popular saints whose mural paintings have survived in all Slovene regions, the saint being painted in supernatural size, on sites where his images could be seen from afar by the greatest multitude of people imaginable, in accordance with a belief that a look at the saint turns away unexpected death for the rest of the day. The majority of mural paintings was produced in the fourteenth, fi fteenth and the fi rst three decades of the sixteenth centuries when the veneration of the saint reached its peak in both Slovenia and western Europe. In Slovenia, the saint is depicted traditionally, with the Christ Child on his shoulders, standing in water and with a blossoming travelling rod in his hand, frontally or sometimes in profile. However, oral tradition reveals that the folk narratives discussed in this article underwent some interesting thematic modifications. For example, even though the legend from Pohorje depicts the saint rather conventionally, he is carrying the Christ Child across the river and Christ's weight is duly noticed by the saint, there is no trace of the so-called Dienstmotiv, the saint's wish to serve the mightiest lord. Apart from that, the saint's materialism and his tendency to uproot trees also help to diff erentiate this rather down-to-earth Slovene narrative from the idealised account of the saint in the Golden legend. In this part of Austrian Carinthia settled by the Slovene minority, the narratives about St Christopher are preserved in the Slovene and German languages and the article divides them into two thematic sections: Treasure hunting and Pilgrimages to Šentkrištofova gora. St Christopher's image as a protector of treasure hunters evolved in particular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when the public increasingly tended to regard treasure hunting activities, legal and illegal, as a socially acceptable way of gaining wealth, especially in Germany and Austria where the saint was particularly favoured in this role. St Christopher as a protector of treasure hunters is known in Kočevje (Gottschee) in the Republic of Slovenia as well. A surviving narrative in the German language, originating among the German-speaking minority, explains Christopher's protection of treasure hunters as a reward for his act of carrying the Christ Child across the sea. Apart from Kočevje, Austrian Carinthia has also preserved this narrative element. Georg Graber in his collection of narratives from Carinthia quotes the narratives depicting the saint as a protector of treasure hunters together with many other folk narratives. The problem is, however, that Graber did not mention the language in which his collected narratives had originally existed. If the original language was Slovene, he, by concealing this fact, helped to create a false impression about the uniformly German nature of Austrian Carinthia, ignoring its bilingual nature altogether. Pilgrimages to St Christopher is a topic which has survived in Austrian Carinthia in both the Slovene and German languages. The Slovene tradition has preserved a narrative in which the locals expel the saint from their neighbourhood. The saint moves to another location and blesses his new abode with good harvests, while his former neighbours, now deeply repentant, make pilgrimages to the saint's new abode. This narrative is geographically speaking rather imprecise. It is not stated where the saint used to live before his expulsion and where he found his new abode, the only tangible detail being in this case the advice of a local priest from Kapla (Eisenkappel) to the congregation to start making pilgrimages to the saint's new habitation. The narrative recorded by Graber in the German language, by contrast, is geographically precise: St. Christopher moves from Uršlja gora (Ursulaberg) to Šentkrištofova gora (Christophberg), 904m, 13 km north-east from Celovec (Klagenfurt), because he is not happy with the locals' lack of attention towards him. Both narratives are based on the stories about wandering saints, Wandersagen/Rastsagen, who wander through various places and eventually settle on their favourite sites. Finally, it is necessary to mention the account by France Kotnik about pilgrimages made to the three mountain peaks above Gosposvetsko polje (Zollfeld), beginning at sunrise and ending at sunset, the mountain peaks in question being apart from Šentkrištofova gora also Šenturška gora (Ulrichsberg) and Šmalenska gora (Magdalensberg). Finally, the article discusses two ocassions for pilgrimages to Šentkrištofova gora, on 25 July (St James the Elder) and 10 August (St Lawrence), made with the purpose of obtaining good harvests. These two pilgrimages as well the pilgrimages to the three mountain peaks are closely associated with St Christopher's position as a Bread-Giver, attributed to the saint in this part of Austrian Carinthia, thus playing down his traditional role as the Christ- -Bearer to some degree. The article relies on the narratives recorded in the twentieth and the early twenty-fi rst centuries, which means that this research focuses on relatively recent accounts. The number of preserved narratives about the saint seems to be rather limited and on the basis of such a small sample it is at present impossible to make too general conclusions as to the saint's position in the folk narrative tradition in the Republic of Slovenia and behind its borders. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that it is this part of Austrian Carinthia settled by the Slovene minority, which has preserved most narratives about the saint, and in spite of a limited number of accounts, it is possible to express some suggestions as to the motifs existing in the discussed narratives. First, St Christopher uprooting the trees slightly resembles Strong John in Mt 678 in Aarne-Thompson motif index; second, in Austrian Carinthia the saint functions among others as a protector of treasure hunters, third, the narratives about his migration from Uršlja gora to Šentkrištofova gora and the origins of pilgrimages to Šentkrištofova gora recall the narratives of the saints' travels, Wandersagen/Rastsagen, and fi nally, he is also known as a Bread-Giver and a patron of good harvests. St Christopher in the preserved narratives therefore acquires additional roles, independent of the Golden Legend, which confirms the saint's popularity as well as the vitality and fl exibility of his legend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]