Vuk Stefanović Karadžić 
Baš Čelik. A Serbian Fairy Tale 

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787-1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the modern Serbian language. For his collection and preservation of Serbian folktales, the
Encyclopædia Britannica labelled Karadžić «the father of Serbian folk-literature scholarship». He was also the author of the first Serbian dictionary in the new reformed language. In addition, he translated the New Testament into the reformed form of the Serbian spelling and language.

Literary historian Jovan Deretić summarized his work as «During his fifty years of tireless activity, he accomplished as much as an entire academy of sciences».


Baš Čelik, meaning ‘head of steel’ (from Turkish
baş for ‘head’ and
çelik for ‘steel’), is a traditional Serbian fairy tale, collected by Vuk Karadžić.

The name of the tale was also translated as
Bash Tchelik or
Bashtchelik (‘Real Steel’, ‘True Steel’) and it was also collected by British author Elodie Lawton Mijatović and included, in 1916, in the collection
Edmund Dulac’s Fairy Book; Fairy Tales of the Allied Nations, published in New York, edited by the French artist and illustrator Edmund Dulac.