Background to Bulgarian Myth & Folklore
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Bulgarian myth and folklore performing arts
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Patron: Professor Ronald Hutton
Bulgarian
Myth and Folklore
Background to Bulgarian
Myth and Folklore
 
Last updated 7/9/05
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Introduction
The Thracians
The Slavs
The Proto-Bulgarians
Bulgarian Folklore
Introduction: Understanding Bulgarian Mythology
and Folklore
The world’s myths,
traditional tales and folklore are windows into the development of the human
psyche. They represent a distillation of human experience that both transcends
and reflects boundaries of time, geography and culture: they
have
universal relevance yet are culture-specific.
Bulgarian folk narratives
are distinguished by their stark, primal qualities, their spare poetic beauty
and powerful archetypal characters. The characters are larger than life - epic
heroes, warrior women and beguiling beings who inhabit a magical landscape that
has its own reality, laws and logic. They are many-layered and reveal some very
ancient roots, perhaps going back to Thracian times and beyond.
The samodivi, the fierce,
enchanting nymphs of the forests and the waters who can call down the moon and
ride wild deer with bow in hand, reflect some aspects of the great Thracian
goddess, Bendis. The medieval hero Krali Marko is overlaid with an earlier
mythology possibly extending as far back as the Thracian Horseman god who
dispensed both life and death. And stories of animals that are human and humans
that are animals may derive from an even earlier era.
Traditional narratives are born into and shaped by particular
cultures and landscapes. While stories speak to us direct across time and space, an
understanding of their cultural context can reveal a whole new dimension of
meaning which
has been obscured through the passage of
time.
Stories are two-way mirrors: a way of looking back into
the past in order to see forward into the present.
This
page provides the context for understanding Bulgarian traditional narratives,
those myths, heroic epics, fairy tales, folk tales and legends that survive
through to the present day. It provides an overview of Bulgaria's ancestral
cultures and the legacy that they have left in the country's traditional tales
and folklore.
It also provides a summary of
current
Bulgarian folklore which holds the key to certain enigmatic symbols and
narrative elements. In this way, we can begin to unlock the secrets of
Bulgarian tales and truly appreciate the richness of these gifts from the past.
Modern day Bulgaria lies at
the crossroads between East and West, and has ancestral roots among three quite
different groups of peoples: the ancient Thracians, the Slavs and the
Proto-Bulgarians. These peoples were originally separate and ethnically distinct with
quite different cultures and religions, and it is this mix that
has contributed to modern Bulgaria’s rich heritage and still vibrant folklore
and traditional culture.
The Thracians
The ancient Thracians were an
Indo-European tribal people who settled at least 5,000 years ago in that area of
the Balkans whose heartland is now the modern state of Bulgaria. Lying at the crossroads between Europe and
Asia, Thracian culture reflected influences from the Scythians in the north, the
Phrygians to the southeast and the Greeks to the west, yet it had its own
distinct identity.
It was a strong rich culture rivalling that of the ancient Greeks, but the Thracians had no written language of their own. So much of what we know about
them comes from their archaeological remains, and from the Greek writers
who were their contemporaries.
Apart from the tale of the legendary singer, Orpheus, whose birthplace was the Rhodopi Mountains (in modern Bulgaria), the mythology and
culture of the
Thracians is largely unknown in the west, having been eclipsed by a
Greek-centred view of early European history.
Yet from
the Bronze Age through to the Roman conquest, Thrace was an important power and
influence in its own right and the Greeks borrowed freely from its exotic
religion and ecstatic cults.
The Thracians were a fierce powerful people ruled by tribal priest kings. They
were excellent warriors renowned for their skill and bravery in
battle, fighting alongside the Trojans against the Greeks in the Trojan War.
They were expert
horse breeders,
produced fine wines and were
master
metalworkers,
creating exquisite adornments, objects and
vessels in silver and gold. Ancient Greek authors describe them as
high-spirited, violent, uninhibited, lusty, drunken, musical and artistic.
Thracian myth and culture is dramatic, veering from light to dark, encompassing
both solar worship and dark Dionysian rites. It is located in a wild mountainous
landscape where the great goddess hunts, the horse is sacred and the mysterious Thracian
Horseman dispenses both life and death.
And Orpheus, the great singer, musician, healer and sorcerer, descends to the
Underworld in search of his dead consort Eurydice, offering the promise of
immortality and rebirth.
The Thracians revered the forces of nature, worshipped the sun and believed in
the immortality of the soul.
Caves
were significant as symbolic entrances to the womb of the earth. Death was not
to be feared, and past and present were not separate in time, but coexisted as
one. Human sacrifice was sometimes practised, including the ritual slaying of a
king's favourite wife upon his death, an honour for which the king's wives
apparently competed.
Click thumbnail for larger picture
 Divine
Marriage
Sexual union
between the goddess daughter and the hero son. The mother of the gods stands
beside them.
Letnitsa Treasure 4th century BC
The Thracian pantheon included Bendis, the
great mother and goddess of wild nature, also known as Kotyto or Perke, Mountain-Mother.
It
is likely that she encompassed influences from the strong fertility
goddess cults which thrived in the Balkan lands
during the earlier Neolithic
(New Stone Age) and Chalcolithic (Copper Age) periods.
As
great mother she initiated creation, bringing forth from herself her son, who
was both the sun in the daytime and the fire god at night. She united with
him in divine marriage so that
the cosmic cycle could be fulfilled and fertility renewed.
She was also associated with the moon and
was sometimes depicted riding a doe, bow in hand with a quiver of arrows upon
her back.
Dionysus, usually called Zagreus in Thrace, was the twice born son of the great
goddess. He was the dark god of wine, of intoxication, excess and
inspiration. He had a wild band of female followers called Maenads, and ecstatic
orgiastic rites were held in his honour. Poetry, music and dance swept along with
him. He was the dying and reborn god who was
sacrificed in the form of a bull, his body torn into pieces and his blood
spilled upon the earth. In this way he united in divine marriage with the great
mother goddess, fertilising her so that he could be reborn and the annual cycle
of life could be renewed.
In contrast, the cult of Orpheus was ascetic, solar-based and open only to men.
Orpheus was the son of the Thracian king Oeagrus (or of the sun god Apollo)
and the muse Calliope. He played the lyre and sang beautifully, and is best
known for his descent to the underworld to bring his beloved bride Evredika
(Eurydice) back from the dead. Music as a transforming power was central to
Orphic rites, and the aim was to achieve immortality.
(Read more about the Orpheus myth in the
Travel Guide to Mythological
Bulgaria.)
The Thracian Horseman,
sometimes simply called Hero, was probably a god of nature and vegetation. He
combined both solar and underworld aspects. He is
depicted on countless votive plaques, often riding towards the tree of life with his cloak flying behind him, or
spearing a boar.
After the 6th century AD the Thracians were absorbed into the Slavic
and Bulgarian peoples who settled in the area, but the subsequent Bulgarian
kingdom inherited their legacy. It is thought that the nomadic Karakachani
people, who still live in Bulgaria and retain a distinct cultural identity, are
direct descendents of the ancient Thracians.
Bulgaria
is rich in Thracian archaeological remains and the landscape is scattered with
huge burial mounds enclosing Thracian tombs. Traces of Thracian myth and
religion have also survived in current Bulgarian folklore and customs, such as
those given below.
Kukeri
are masked male dancers and mummers, who wear fantastic, often animal like masks
(like the one pictured above), and huge bronze cowbells round their waists (like
those pictured below). They carry sticks, which symbolise the phallus, in a
spring fertility rite derived from the ancient Dionysian new year festival.
(Ritual adapted for
Beyond Nine Forests)
Click thumbnail for larger picture
Koukeri
Pazardzhik region
The epic hero, Krali Marko, was a real historical person who lived in the 14th
century AD. He has since become overlaid with an earlier mythology that
reflects some aspects of the Thracian Horseman god, who was sometimes simply
called Hero. There are many heroic songs about Krali Marko’s adventures with his magical
horse Sharkoliya. Traditionally these epic tales were told through
song. (Tales included in
Breathing The Dawn
and
The Red Blood
Rose.)
Read more
about horse mythology.
Nestinarstvo
fire dancing There are now only a few genuine Nestinari/Nestinarki (male/female
fire dancers) left in the Strandja area of Bulgaria. They enter into a spiritual trance to dance
barefoot on burning
embers during the festival of St Konstantin and Elena in midsummer, in a relic
of an ancient Thracian solar ritual.
Samodiva
plural samodivi (also samovili): There are many tales
about these wild female nymphs of the waters, woodlands and the mountains,
renowned for their exquisite singing and dancing. Though they are generally
viewed as Slavic in origin (see below), in Bulgarian folklore they share some
characteristics with the Thracian goddess Bendis. In one tale, Vida, a powerful
samodiva of the Pirin mountains, rides a stag harnessed with reins of grass
snakes and stirrups of serpents.
She kills the beautiful male singer, Ivė (a relic of Orpheus?)
with her bow and arrows, and flies up to
the moon, before restoring him to life in the curative gardens of Magda samovila.
In other tales, samodivi call down the moon and milk it like a cow.
In some tales they kill or take the heads of humans who cross them, reminiscent
of the Maenads, the ecstatic female followers of Dionysus who tore Orpheus apart
in a drunken frenzy. (Tales about samodivi included in
The Dark-Eyed Warrior
and
Breathing The Dawn.)
Trifon Zarezan
is
the patron saint of vineyards. On 1st February (old Julian calendar,
or 14th February in the new calendar), there is a ceremonial pruning of the vine shoots, and a wine
libation is poured onto the earth. The custom is associated with a Bulgarian
legend which tells how the Virgin Mary punishes Trifon by causing him to cut off
his nose (a euphemism for the phallus) with his pruning shears. The custom and
legend
reflect elements of the Thracian cult
of Dionysus, the dying and reborn god of wine.
Bulgaria’s
ancient style of singing,
famed throughout the world for its haunting vocals
and exquisite harmonies, surely follows in the tradition of Orpheus. It is also
thought that Bulgaria’s unusual uneven rhythms may derive from Thracian music.
The
Slavs
The Slavs migrated to the
Balkan peninsula from Central Europe in the early part of the 7th
century AD. They were a freedom-loving agricultural people, living
democratically in clan communes with no rigid organisational structures or
hierarchies.
They believed in many
deities, spirits of nature and demons, and for them, the world was alive with
all-pervasive supernatural powers and energies, including wood and water
nymphs, witches, vampires and werewolves. Certain trees
and animals were revered as man’s ancestors, fire and the sun were an important
part of rituals, and the celebration of seasonal
festivals, particularly the solstices, featured prominently in their religion. Like the Thracians, they also practised
occasional human sacrifice.
The Slavs had a dualistic view of the universe; that is, they believed that the
world was fuelled by the interaction of complementary opposites such as
dark/light, male/female, summer/winter. Thus Byalobog (white god) and Chernobog (black god) were two brothers, gods of light and dark,
the waxing and the waning year respectively. Each year they would battle at Koleda (midwinter) and
Kupalo (midsummer), alternating victory and defeat.
Byalobog and Chernobog were not
simplistic representations of good and evil, or God and the Devil. Rather, it was
from their creative interaction that the world was born and that the annual
cycle of the year was renewed.
At the centre of the Slavic universe, giving it structure, stood the World Tree. The realm of the dead lay at its
roots, the world of living creatures at its trunk and heaven rose at its
crown.
The Slavs worshipped their gods in the form of
stone or wooden idols in shrines
located near old trees.
Their main god was Perun, the god of thunder, who gave his name to the Pirin mountains in southern
Bulgaria. Volos, or Veles was the god of horned animals. Black
Mother Earth was revered but female deities were otherwise less significant. They included Lada and Lyulya,
goddesses of love, spring and beauty.
Some elements of Slavic myth
and custom that have survived in current Bulgarian myth and folklore are given
below.
Ladouvane
A girls’ ritual that takes
its name from Lada, the Slavic goddess of love. The ritual includes a fortune
telling custom called “the singing of the rings”. The goddess also features
in traditional Bulgarian wedding songs. (Ritual adapted for
The Dragon
Lover.)
Koleda
This
winter solstice festival, named after Kolyada, the Slavic god of winter, is known in
Britain as Christmas. At this time, groups of young men called Koledari go from
house to house singing special ritual songs for different members of the family.
Many of these songs are wonderful short stories with a strong mythological
content.
Vampires
Vampires
are the un-dead, they that return from the grave to walk the night, throttling
sleepers and drinking
blood from humans and animals. Of the
various types of Slavic demonic beings, they are perhaps the
best known in the West. But unlike the vampires that stalk the pages of Bram Stoker's Dracula,
the Bulgarian variety
cannot
infect others with their bite nor shape shift into bats. Instead they are created when proper burial and
mourning rites are not fulfilled. If death is unnatural,
if a human or animal jumps over the freshly dug grave, if a corpse is not properly washed or the deceased
is not fully mourned, if the
dead person has led an evil life, then a
vampire may be spawned.
According to some people, during the first 40 days of their existence vampires
look like shadows or shapeless
blood-filled bags of skin, after which they become strong enough to form bone and to take on human
shape. Then they can leave the grave during the daytime, get a job, and even get
married. But they must always be careful not to cut or prick themselves,
otherwise they will burst and be reduced to a bloody pool upon the
ground.
Vampires can be destroyed by pouring boiling oil or putting hawthorn
into the grave, by fire, nail, stake or silver bullet. Although vampires are frightening,
they are also a bit stupid and therefore easily tricked. You could, for example, scatter
grain on the ground and it would stop to count each one obsessively, giving you the chance of escape! Or you
could send it
to get fish from the river, and it would fall into the water and drown.
Zmey The zmey, or dragon
is often seen as benign and has an
important place in Bulgarian myth and folklore.
Each village had its own guardian zmey to
protect the fertility of the land and to battle against the malignant forces
that cause drought and hail. The ferocity of these battles gave rise to
thunderstorms and lightening, linking the zmey to the Slavic thunder god, Perun.
The Bulgarian dragon is quite a complex being, as he has also absorbed elements
from his Thracian and Proto-Bulgarian ancestors.
Read more about Dragons
Read about our show
The Dragon Lover.
The Proto-Bulgarians
The ancestral homeland of the
Bulgars, often known as the Proto (early/original) Bulgarians, is uncertain but it was
probably the Altai Mountains of Central Asia or the Pamir
mountain lands north of Pakistan.
The Proto-Bulgarians left their ancestral lands long ago, becoming part of
the Great Migration of peoples in the early centuries AD. They were nomadic, kept herds, revered horses, and drank mare’s milk as an essential part of their diet. They were skilled in metalwork,
and lived in clans under the leadership of khans who held absolute power. They were excellent warriors with
a well-organised army, fighting alongside Attila the Hun. In the seventh
century AD they established a state
called Great Bulgaria in the Russian steppes north of the Caucasus.
But Great Bulgaria lasted only a few decades before it came under attack from
the Khazars and
began to disintegrate. Khan Asparuh, one of the five sons of the great Khan Kubrat of
the Dulo clan, set out with a section of the Proto-Bulgarian tribe to seek new
lands. In 681 AD
he founded the first Bulgarian
state in the Balkans in exchange for protecting the local Slav population
against Byzantine attack. But the Proto-Bulgarians were a minority ruling group,
so eventually their language and culture were absorbed into that of the Slavic
majority.
The Kapantsi, an ethnic group living in north-east Bulgaria, are
thought to be descendents of Asparuh's original tribe.
Proto-Bulgarian religion centred on the
worship of the seven celestial bodies: the sun, the moon and the five then known
planets - Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn. Their main deity
was the sky god, Tangra (perhaps also called Edfu), whose sacred animals included the horse and the eagle.
White horses were particularly revered, and horse's entrails were used for
divining.
Read more
about horse mythology
Click thumbnail
for larger picture
Bulgarian horseman
Bronze amulet. 8th or 9th century
The goddess of fertility and Tangra's consort was called Umai; her image
is engraved into
the rock at Perperikon (see the
Travel
Guide to Mythological Bulgaria).
Shamanism was practised and each clan had a sacred animal totem – deer,
dogs and wolves seem to have had special significance. Waterfowl were a symbol of life.
Although they had no writing system as
such,
the Proto-Bulgarians used runes and had their own very accurate calendar based
on a 12-year cycle like the Chinese calendar, each year bearing the name of an
animal, bird or reptile.
The Pliska rosette
Bronze medallion, 8th-9th
century AD, engraved with Proto-Bulgarian runes. Its rays may symbolize the
seven celestial bodies
Little is known about the religion of these early Bulgarians,
though there are intriguing echoes
of it in current Bulgarian folklore, as in the examples given below. They also
left behind impressive stone settlements such as those at Pliska and Preslav,
and the magnificent Madara Horseman rock relief.
Wolves’
Days
These are a set of three, seven or nine days
in November when Bulgarians traditionally observe various taboos to protect
people and domestic animals from wolf attack. The last day is the most
dangerous, as it is observed in honour of a lame wolf, who according to legend,
was the first to eat a man. The custom of Wolves’ Days is probably an echo of a
Proto-Bulgarian wolf cult.
Baba Marta
The month of March is still personified in Bulgaria as Grandmother March, an
old woman whose mood is as variable as the March weather.
Read a story about Baba Marta
The first of March
marks the beginning of spring. It is
a special festival day on which people wish each other “Chestita Baba Marta”
(Happy Grandmother March) and give each
other martenitsas,
small tassels of white and red thread for health and good luck.
This custom is
rarely found outside Bulgaria, indicating that it is not Slavic in origin. Many
legends trace it back to the time when Bulgaria was founded in 681 AD. One
story
tells that it originated when Khan Asparuh's sister sent him a message
tied with a white thread to the foot of a stork; the stork's blood is
represented in the red part of the martenitsa. (There are also claims for a
Thracian origin for the custom.)
Bulgarian Myth and Folklore:
Photo Ivor Davies
Karakachani girls at Koprivshtitsa folk festival, 2000
Bulgaria's three main
ancestral
cultures and mythologies, Thracian, Slavic and Proto-Bulgarian combined with
each other, developed and transformed to produce the body of folk customs,
beliefs, artistic forms and traditional narratives that have existed right up
until the modern era and which are now collectively known as Bulgarian folklore.
Other important influences include Bulgaria's official conversion to
Christianity in the ninth century. However many of the country's ancestral pagan beliefs and customs
were not abandoned but were absorbed into the new religion. They survive in modified form through
to the present day, interwoven with Christianity. The Thracian Horseman was reincarnated in the Christian figure of St
George, seen as the bringer of summer and fertility. The Slavic thunder god, Perun, was reincarnated as the Christian St Ilya, and pagan folk festivals and
rituals continued with a thin veneer of the new religion.
The
Ottoman Turks conquered Bulgaria in the 14th century and ruled it for 500 years as
part of the Ottoman Empire. This also left its mark on Bulgarian myth
and folklore. For example, tales about
Nastraddin Hodja, the Turkish imam and
wise fool, were assimilated and adapted into the Bulgarian oral tradition, one
positive product of this dark and bloody period of Bulgarian history.
In essence Bulgarian folklore is the combination of its ancestral mythologies in living practice, or in practice within recent historic memory. It
still exists, albeit on a reduced scale, as a vibrant part of Bulgarian culture.
Its many layers hold the key to
certain intriguing aspects of Bulgarian traditional narratives.
Bulgarian folk customs fall into two broad categories: those associated with the
individual's passage through life (birth, marriage, death); calendar customs
associated with the annual cycle of nature and agriculture.
The most important of the life cycle customs are those associated with the
Bulgarian wedding. The most important of the seasonal customs are those
associated with the solar cycle.
The Traditional Bulgarian Wedding
Marriage is the main goal/theme in many Bulgarian tales, and the main characters
are those who are ready to get married.
The traditional Bulgarian wedding is almost mythic in action, and rich in
symbolism. It provides the key to several enigmatic elements in these stories.
Bulgarian wedding rituals are concerned with ensuring a successful and fertile
marriage. During the wedding period, the bride and groom are at the centre of
the cosmic drama of creation that has been enacted over and over again since the
beginning of time. The young couple are imbued with a special life-giving power
that bestows blessings and fertility upon the whole community, guaranteeing the
future. The consummation of the marriage on the wedding day becomes an act of magic.
The groom must first prove himself. On the wedding day he and his wedding party set out on the
great life-changing journey from his home, enduring (mock) ambush by the bride's
party en route and symbolically capturing the bride's house against (token)
resistance. The groom (or more usually his brother acting on his behalf) must
also perform feats of daring in order to claim the bride and take her back home.
This sequence of events translates into the basic elements of many stories about
the hero's journey in Bulgarian
epics and fairytales: the quest, the adventure, the
finding of a bride and the return. The relationship between the groom and his
brother (or best man) plays a key role in several Bulgarian epics. This
character, frequently described as "the wolfskin cap and the bearskin
coat", often substitutes for the hero in fulfilling his tasks.
The bride has her own challenges, her own heroine's journey to make. She must
bid farewell to her old life, her friends and family amid much weeping. Then she
must set out for her new home and family and enter the unknown. In the
heightened language of Bulgarian ritual wedding songs this is often described as
a journey to a foreign land.
While the general sequence of events on the wedding day provides the basic plot
for many narratives, various rituals and symbols used throughout the wedding
period translate into some of the most intriguing and magical episodes in
Bulgarian tales.
Tree Symbolism: the Wedding Banner, the Koum's Tree and
Girls In Trees!
The wedding banner and the koum's tree play a significant part in wedding
activities. Prepared in the week prior to the wedding with special ritual and
song, they represent the Tree of Life, an important symbol in many ancient
mythologies.
The wedding banner consists of a flag attached to a pole that has been ritually
cut from a tree. The banner is topped with a red or gold foil-wrapped apple
symbolising the sun and fertility, and decorated with flowers, ivy, strings of
popcorn and chilli peppers.
In some areas, the bride and the groom have a separate banner, with a white flag
for the bride and a red flag for the groom. In other areas the groom's family
prepare a single banner with both red and white flags upon it.
On the wedding day, the groom's party set out with banner held proudly aloft to
fetch the bride. When they gain entry to the bride's home, they capture her banner (if she
has a separate one) and symbolically unite it with the groom's to form a single
banner. It then accompanies the wedding party to the bride's new home. After the
wedding is over, the banner is ritually dismantled: the pole is broken, the
cloth is given to the bride, and the apple is eaten by the young couple.
The wedding banner signifies that the bride must break from her family tree in
order to join with the groom and start a new branch of the perpetual Tree of
Life. Only then can the future be assured
and life be renewed.
The koum's tree serves a similar symbolic function. It takes its name from the
koum, the best man or godfather of the wedding, and the most important person
after the bridal couple. It consists of the crown of a small tree or a branch beautifully decorated
with flowers, red thread, ivy, popcorn and red or gold foil-wrapped apples
symbolising the sun and fertility. The tree is set into a loaf of bread
ornamented with serpents, representing the guardian snake. On the wedding day
the tree has pride of place at the feast table until it is ritually destroyed by the koum.
In Bulgarian fairytales these symbols and ritual actions translate into the theme of a girl sitting up in a
tree. She is brought down to earth by a young man (a king) or his hunters (his
wedding party), either by persuasion or as in the story "Little Stag Brother",
by chopping the tree down. When you come across this theme in a story, you know
that the girl has reached a marriageable age and a wedding is at hand!
Braiding and Shaving
Rituals: the Comb and Razor as Magical Objects
On the night or the morning before the
wedding itself, two important rituals take place. The bride's hair is braided
and the groom is shaved at their respective homes. Both rituals are accompanied
by special songs and ceremony. After the wedding, the bride will not appear
again in public with her head bare or with her hair loose like a wild samodiva.
She will always wear a headscarf. The groom is no longer a boy, but a man ready
to take on responsibility. The hair is tamed; the wild years of youth will be
put aside and a new life will begin.
In the language of fairy tale the comb and the razor, the tools of braiding and
shaving, become symbols of initiation into sexual maturity. They take on
magical transforming properties and represent the transition from one stage of
life to another.
Click
thumbnail for larger picture
 A Bulgarian bride
Pleven district.
Traditional Bulgarian weddings
lasted at least a week and involved a complex series of
rituals to ensure the success of the
marriage. Some of the symbols found in folk tales, such as the comb and the
razor, derive from the pre-wedding rituals of plaiting the bride's hair and
shaving the groom. In folk tales the comb and the razor can therefore be
understood as symbols of initiation into sexual maturity.
Click thumbnail for larger picture
St Enyo's bride
At midsummer (24th June), a small girl
dressed as St Enyo's (St John's) bride is carried around the village to bring
fertility to the land, to increase the healing power of herbs and to predict the
future.
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