By 1598 the village had a mill and forty-three houses. It sat at the closed head of the Rajec valley in the Strážovské vrchy, on ground too high and too steep for grain, so the living came from sheep, from bryndza — the sharp sheep's cheese that is still Slovakia's national food — and from the forest. This was the century when Ottoman armies held the middle of the Kingdom of Hungary and castles all along the southern frontier were being rebuilt for artillery, but the village's own record says nothing about it. That is the advantage of a valley that leads nowhere.V roku 1598 mala obec mlyn a štyridsaťtri domov. Ležala na uzavretom konci Rajeckej doliny v Strážovských vrchoch, na pôde príliš vysokej a strmej na obilie, a tak sa žilo z oviec, z bryndze — ostrého ovčieho syra, ktorý je dodnes slovenským národným jedlom — a z lesa. Bolo to storočie, keď osmanské vojská držali stred Uhorského kráľovstva a hrady na južnej hranici sa prestavovali pre delostrelectvo, no vlastné záznamy obce o tom mlčia. To je výhoda doliny, ktorá nikam nevedie.
