THE LEGENDS ABOUT  KRALE MARKO

 … Three years had pass since Marko was ruling in his white city of Prilip, when he began to wonder whether he should not think about marriage. Marko had won a reputation throughout the land as a noble hero, but love, romantic love, he had not encountered yet. The love for his people filled his heart and his life, and he was continually working for their good. But 'the time had come, so Marko felt, for him to take a wife… 

...It was during the time when Marko was travelling through Asia Minor and he had pitched his tent among the fierce Arabs who dwell there. He sat down in his tent to drink wine, and he had barely seated comfortably when the flap of his tent was opened and a girl ran in and threw herself at his feet… 
 
...Marko’s fame had spread rapidly through the land, stories of his giant strength, wisdom and of his honesty soon reached the ears of the Emperor Stepan. Being cleverer then most other man the Emperor felt that here was a young man who should be at his court and in his service. So he wrote to Marko’s father to ask for him… The legend continues that Marko was confronted by the emperor with three questions: “How many blades of grass are there in my meadow? How many hairs are there on my bead? How many stars are there in heaven?" To this, the legend has it, Marko replied: "Your Majesty, I shall be very glad to answer these questions and I shall start at once on the counting. Only I must first have some tools to count with. Give me some needles, so that I can stick one needle in every blade of grass that I count, so there shall be no error. Next, take off your head, so that it will not annoy you while I count the number of your hairs. Then tell me the number of the stars that are above your kingdom, so that I shall not take anything from your realm." …


THE medieval KING OF PRILEP

King Marko, or Krali Marko the title under which his legend is widely spread, is far more famous then any other ruler in Balkans in the period of the Ottoman invasion in the Balkans. His popularity, to some extend owns to the fact that he received the title “young king” and co-ruler to his father at the age of 16, thus performing important state duties and responsibilities.

King Marko was born about 1335. The first time he is mentioned in a document is when he visited Dubrovnik as a delegate of his father King Volkashin. His name is also mentioned in some notes and chronicles of his time as a son of Volkashin or, later, as a king. In a document dated 1370, Volkashin mentioned his sons Marko and Andrea and his wife Elena, about whom there is no other data available in the history.

According to many unconfirmed historical sources, King Volkashin, Marko's father, and Queen Elena (in some sources she is called Elisaveta and in others Efrosima) had four sons: Marko, Andrea, Ivan and Dimitrija, and unknown number of daughters. From Marko's sister, only the name Olivara is mentioned in the sources. King Marko married the daughter of Radoslav Hlapen, the ruler of Vodena (today's Edessa in Greece) and had left her before the battle of Marica (1371 between the Sultan Murat II and the Serbian rulers Vukasin and Ugljesa), later on he remarried the same wife Jelena after abandoning the first one. It is not clear whether Queen Jelena gave Marko a successor.

After the death of his father Volkashin, Marko inherited the throne and the title. King Marko was forced to recognize Turkish authority, as supreme, to take an obligation before the Sultan to pay tribute (jizia and poll-tax) and to provide military assistance whenever so requested by the Sultan. The other Turkish vassals, like Konstantin Dragash or the Serbian despot Stefan Lazarevich (after the battle at Kosovo), had similar obligations.

The territory of Marko's rule stretched on the right bank of the River Vardar: from the mountain of Shar and Albanian mountains in the northeast, to Kostur (Kastoria) in the southwest, with its capilal in Prilep. Skopje and Ohrid did not belong to Marko, except perhaps temporally. As a king, Marko minted coins with the inscription: "King Marko faithful to Lord Jesus Christ." A similar inscription is found on the frescoes depicting his figure in the monastery of St. Dimitar in Varos, Prilep. In the Prizren (Serbia) church of the Introduction of the Holy Virgin, an inscription is found where Marko is named as "a young king. " Fulfilling his vassal obligation for military assistance to Sultan Bayazit, King Marko was killed on May 17,1395 in Craiova (Romania) during the battle against the Vlach military leader Mircho. Other vassals of Sultan Bayazit also took part in the battle: the despot Stefan Lazarevich and Konstantin Dragash, who was also killed at the battlefield.