--- title: "Pod Tanečnicí: mountain meadows above Valašská Bystřice" description: "The clearings Pod Tanečnicí are the last remnants of mountain pasture above Valašská Bystřice. Meet the landscape Wallachian sheep shaped for centuries." url: "https://zpusteven.cz/en/pod-tanecnici" lang: "en" latitude: 49.3850624 longitude: 18.1894612 --- ![Aerial view of a grassy clearing in the middle of dense spruce forest, the wooded ridge of the Vsetínské vrchy behind](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0971.avif) Remnants of mountain meadows • Valašská Bystřice • 858 m a.s.l. # Pod Tanečnicí For three hundred years Wallachian sheep kept this landscape open. Now spruce forest is closing it. - **Altitude:** 858 m a.s.l. (the signpost) - **Summit of Tanečnice:** 912 m a.s.l. - **Sheep farming here since:** the late 15th century - **Protected area:** Beskydy Protected Landscape Area ## Meadows the forest is catching up with Below the summit of Tanečnice (912 m), the highest mountain of Valašská Bystřice, a few grassy clearings lie in dense spruce forest. Today they look like chance gaps between the trees – **in fact they are the last remnants of far more extensive mountain pastures**, kept open here for centuries by flocks of grazing sheep. The way of farming those pastures was called salašnictví, and the sheep kept on them were **Wallachian sheep** - a breed that helped shape the landscape of the Beskids and Wallachia, and yet all but disappeared. ![Aerial view of a grassy clearing surrounded by spruce forest, with a view into the valley behind](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0975.avif) One of the clearings below Tanečnice. An unremarkable piece of grass from outside - in fact a remnant of a landscape sheep kept here for three centuries. Why come here ### To see how quickly the forest wins The clearings below Tanečnice are a **textbook case of a meadow growing over** - what awaits every mountain meadow people stop grazing or mowing. What not to miss ### The summit of Tanečnice From the signpost it is only **about 200 metres uphill** to the summit. A small stone cairn waits there, with a summit book and a sign carrying the legend the mountain is named after. When to come ### Any time, but do not expect pasture The clearings are **small and hidden deep in the forest** today - what awaits you is an ordinary walk in the woods along the waymarks. The open pastures of this story have largely been replaced by spruce forest. ![Letecký pohled na travnatý palouk se suchým osamělým smrkem uprostřed, obklopený hustým lesem](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0001.avif) ![Letecký pohled na travnatý palouk s pěšinou a náletovými keři, obklopený smrkovým lesem s usychajícími stromy na okraji](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0997.avif) ![Letecký pohled na palouk s pěšinou uprostřed lesa, v pozadí zvlněná krajina Vsetínských vrchů](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0980.avif) ![DJI_0985.avif](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0985.avif)![DJI_0988.avif](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0988.avif)![DJI_0993.avif](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0993.avif) ## The story of the Wallachian colonisation below Tanečnice For three hundred years the sheep came here. For a hundred and fifty they have not - and it shows in the landscape. ### The Wallachian colonisation A landscape made by sheep **The Wallachians came to Moravia with their flocks of Wallachian sheep from the eastern Carpathians at the end of the 15th century.** By the first half of the 16th century flocks of Wallachian sheep are recorded across the whole of eastern Moravia - some five thousand animals were then grazing in the mountains. The system they farmed by was called **salašnictví**. In summer, from the middle of May to the end of September, the sheep were driven to steep, remote and hard-to-reach mountain pastures - the so-called _hole_ (singular _hola_). By day they grazed without shelter; at night the shepherds gathered them into pens called košáry. The ridge of the Vsetínské vrchy around Tanečnice was once **deforested pasture** - centuries of grazing kept it open. Today's continuous spruce forest grew on it only later. The clearings you find here are the last fragments of that once extensive pasture. - **The Wallachians reach Moravia:** late 15th century - **Sheep in the mountains around 1550:** some 5,000 - **The season on the high pastures:** 15 May - 30 September ### The valaška sheep A breed that all but disappeared The sheep the herders kept on these pastures is the **valaška** - a hardy, coarse-wooled, triple-purpose breed (milk, meat and wool), bred for pastoral farming on steep and distant pastures. It was this sheep that helped shape the character of the whole of Wallachia and the Beskids. From the end of the 18th century, though, pastoral farming in eastern Moravia declined without a break - it was pushed out by more profitable forestry. Imports of cheap Australian wool and the rise of cotton as a textile raw material added to it. Both world wars decimated the flocks further. After the Second World War traditional mountain sheep farms survived only in the Radhošťské Beskydy, in the Javorníky Mountains and in the north-eastern part of the White Carpathians. The pure-bred valaška meanwhile gave way to improved breeds and almost vanished. > In the 1980s the last Wallachian sheep were gathered into a single flock - today the breed is protected by a herd book and a breeders' club. > > Source: the farm of Ing. Jan Vejčík - Původní valaška - **the decline of sheep farming begins:** late 18th c. - **the improved valaška recognised:** 1982 - **kept as a genetic reserve:** today ![A Wallachian sheep with long coarse fleece and curled horns](https://d.zpusteven.cz/ccmedia/1280/ovce-valasska.avif) The valaška - a coarse-wooled breed with its characteristic curled horns. Illustrative photograph, a flock at Tiergarten Worms. Foto: [4028mdk09, Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Walachenschaf%5FTiergarten%5FWorms%5F2011.JPG), [CC BY-SA 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) The forest returns ### What is left keeps shrinking Without regular grazing or mowing a mountain meadow always does the same thing: **it grows over with self-seeded growth and disappears under the forest**. That is exactly what happened here - over the last two hundred years or so, the extensive pastures below Tanečnice have come down to a few isolated clearings, hemmed in on every side by spruce. The same fate met other mountain meadows of the Rožnov and Makov areas. [Poskla](https://zpusteven.cz/en/poskla) and [Kudlačena](https://zpusteven.cz/en/kudlacena) deal with growing over and the return of grazing. At [Benešky](https://zpusteven.cz/en/benesky), another ridge of the Vsetínské vrchy, care by mowing was even restored after twenty years. Below Tanečnice no such care has returned - the clearings remain what they are: the last remnant of a landscape sheep kept for six centuries, and they keep shrinking. ![Aerial view of a long grassy clearing along a path, with self-seeded shrubs at the edges and dead trees at the forest margin, surrounded by dense spruce](https://d.zpusteven.cz/place/pod-tanecnici/1280/DJI_0978.avif) Self-seeded shrubs at the edge of the clearing and dead trees in the spruce forest around - the first step to the meadow becoming forest again. Timeline ## From the Wallachian colonisation back to forest Three hundred years of pastoral farming in the Moravian mountains - from the arrival of the first flocks to today's remnants of pasture below Tanečnice. 1. late 15th century ### The Wallachians arrive with their flocks Herders with flocks of Wallachian sheep move onto Moravian soil from the Carpathian lands to the east. They bring **salašnictví** with them - a way of farming built on summer grazing on the high mountain pastures. 2. 1st half of the 16th century ### Sheep farming across eastern Moravia Flocks of Wallachian sheep are recorded across the whole region. **Some five thousand sheep** graze in the mountains - the ridge around Tanečnice is one of the grazing areas. 3. late 18th century ### The decline begins Pastoral farming in eastern Moravia begins to **decline without a break** - forestry is more profitable, and cheap imported wool competes as well. 4. 1st half of the 20th century ### Two world wars Both world wars **decimate the flocks**. After the second, traditional mountain sheep farms survived only in the Radhošťské Beskydy, in the Javorníky Mountains and in the White Carpathians. 5. around 1980 ### The valaška on the brink Improved breeds all but push out the **pure-bred valaška**. The last animals are gathered into a single flock, which becomes the basis of today's rescue. 6. 1982 ### The improved valaška recognised In Slovakia the breed **zušlechtěná valaška** is recognised - the result of decades of improving the original breed. 7. today ### Clearings among the spruces Of the former high pastures below Tanečnice a few **isolated clearings surrounded by forest** are left. Without grazing they keep growing over; the valaška is kept as a genetic reserve in small flocks. Visit ## Plan your climb below Tanečnice ### Where exactly it is #### The Pod Vsackou Tanečnicí signpost, 858 m a.s.l. The place lies on the main ridge of the **Vsetínské vrchy** above the village of Valašská Bystřice, just under 200 metres below the summit of **Tanečnice (912 m a.s.l.)**. The Pod Vsackou Tanečnicí signpost (KČT VS239) stands at 858 m a.s.l. and the whole area falls within the Beskydy Protected Landscape Area. ##### Otevřít v mapách [Mapy.com](https://mapy.com/en/zakladni?x=18.1894612&y=49.3850624&z=16&source=coor&id=18.1894612,49.3850624) · [Google Maps](https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=49.3850624,18.1894612) The pin marks the walkers' signpost. ##### Other places nearby [Čarták](https://zpusteven.cz/en/cartak) · [The Charlotta Masaryková memorial](https://zpusteven.cz/charlotte-masaryk-memorial) · [Poskla](https://zpusteven.cz/en/poskla) · [Graves of the portáši](https://zpusteven.cz/en/portasske-hroby) · [Kotlová and the settlement of Jezerné](https://zpusteven.cz/en/kotlova) · [Rysová](https://zpusteven.cz/en/rysova) Map of the area ### How to get here **On foot only, along waymarked paths.** The **red, blue and green waymarks** and the Via Czechia long-distance route all pass through the Pod Vsackou Tanečnicí signpost. The shortest way up is from the village of Valašská Bystřice along the ridge to the signpost, from where it is just under 15 minutes uphill to the summit of Tanečnice. ### What to know before you go #### How long it takes From Valašská Bystřice to the saddle below Tanečnice allow **an hour or more uphill**; another 15 minutes or so to the summit. #### Protected area The whole area is in the **Beskydy Protected Landscape Area**. The clearings are not tended ground, only a remnant of a landscape that has survived by itself in the middle of the forest. #### What you will see on the spot **Do not expect open pasture** - today it is a few smaller meadows among mature forest. On the summit of Tanečnice there is a stone cairn, a summit book and a sign with the legend of the dancer the mountain is named after. #### Nearest facilities Refreshments and toilets are down in Valašská Bystřice. Na závěr ## Doplňující info a test znalostí ### Rychlá rekapitulace **What is left today of the mountain pastures below Tanečnice?** A few isolated clearings surrounded by spruce forest - the remnant of far more extensive pastures that centuries of sheep grazing kept open here. **How long have Wallachian sheep been grazed here?** Since the end of the 15th century, when the Wallachians came to Moravia with flocks of Wallachian sheep from the Carpathian lands. By the middle of the 16th century some five thousand sheep were grazing in the mountains. **Why did pastoral farming decline from the end of the 18th century?** Forestry was more profitable, and imports of cheap Australian wool and the rise of cotton added to it. Both world wars decimated the flocks further. **How high is the summit of Tanečnice and what will you find on it?** 912 m a.s.l. - the highest mountain of Valašská Bystřice. On the summit there is a small stone cairn, a summit book and a sign with the legend the mountain is named after. --- Source: [Pod Tanečnicí: mountain meadows above Valašská Bystřice](https://zpusteven.cz/en/pod-tanecnici) - zPusteven.cz. When citing, please link to the page.