Balaur

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A dragon sculpture in Romania. Balaur Brasov 1.jpg
A dragon sculpture in Romania.

A balaur (pl. balauri) in Romanian folklore is a type of many-headed dragon or monstrous serpent, sometimes said to be equipped with wings. The number of heads is usually around three, but they can also have seven heads or even twelve heads according to some legends.

Contents

The balaur in folktale is typically evil, demanding or abducting young maidens or the princess, and defeated by the hero such as Saint George or the fair youth Făt-Frumos.

There is some lore in which the balaur is considered weather-making, and living in an airborne state, but these types of balaur are sometimes interchangeably called hala or ala, being confounded with the pan-Slavic air and water demon. The balaur (instead of the zmeu) is the vehicle of the weather-controlling Solomonari according to some sources.

There are also legends about the balaur in which they can produce precious stones from their saliva. Also, it is said that whoever manages to slay it will be forgiven a sin.

General description

In the Romanian language, balauri are "monstrous serpents" or dragons. Alternatively, the word balaur can be used to describe any monster like creature. [1] They are many-headed like the Greek hell-hound Cerberus or the hydra [1] [2] and are winged and golden, according to Lazăr Șăineanu. [2]

As reported by journalist Eustace Clare Grenville Murray, in Romanian folklore the balaur or balaurul is a serpentine being who guards treasures and princesses, coming to blows against heroic Fêt-Frumos. [3]

The balaur recurs in Romanian folktales as a ravenous dragon that preys upon maidens only to be defeated by the hero Făt-Frumos ("Handsome Lad"). [2] The balaur may also be the abductor of the princess Ileana Cosânzeana, [4] although according to Șăineanu the kidnapper of this princess is a zmeu in the form of giant with pebbly tails [2] (or scaly tails). [5] It is noted that the balaur and the zmeu are often confounded with each other. [2] [5]

According to folklorist Tudor Pamfile, there are three types of balauri in folk tradition: water-, land-, and air-dwelling. [6] A type of balaur of the first type is a seven-headed monster that dwells in the well of a village, demanding maidens as sacrifice until defeated by either the hero named Busuioc or by Saint George. [6]

The second type of balaur, according to Pamfile, is said to dwell in the "Armenian land" (Romanian : ţara armenească ) where they produce precious stones. [6] In Wallachia, it is also believed that the saliva of a balaur can form precious stones, according to American writer Cora Linn Daniels. [7] Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade noted that the notion a precious stones are formed from a snake's spittle is widespread, from England to China. [a] [8]

The balaur is often associated with the weather and is alternatively called hala or ala, [6] which is usually a Slavic term for a weather demon. This is the type Pamfile calls the "third type" that is air-dwelling. [6] When two balauri meet and fight in the air, there ensues various meteorological damages such as uprooting of trees, or objects being tossed about. [6] Another tradition is that the balaur uses the rainbow as its path and sucks moisture from any spot in order to cause rain. [6] There is also lore about the balaur which is said to be quite similar to the Bulgarian Banat lore about the lamia (locally called lam'a), which states that the lam'a draw water from the sea to fill the cloud. [9] [b]

Although the dragons ridden by the Solomonari are often said to be zmei (sing. zmeu), [10] they were balauri according to some sources. A balaur was controlled by these weather-controlling sorcerers using "a golden rein" (or golden bridle; Romanian : un frâu de aur ). [c] The dragons were usually kept hidden in the depths of a lake, until summoned by their riders. [11] [12] [13]

Name

In Eastern Romance

The word is attested in Daco-Romanian and Aromanian. [14] In Romanian language the word appears with variations: balaoană, [15] bălăuraş, bălăurel, balaurel, bălăuroaică, bălăuaua, and possibly in the shorter form bală. [16] Similar words are attested in Megleno-Romanian, e.g., bular 'a type of large snake' and bălăura 'large (about plums)', and in Aromanian bularu 'red snake'. [17]

Slavic comparanda

According to Ranko Matasovic, the word appears along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. [18] In this regard, Croatian linguist Peter Skok located the following variations of the lexeme: [19] [20]

The Serbo-Croatian blavor/blaor/blavur ("European legless lizard") is cognate with balaur, [22] [23] [24] and is regarded as one of the few pre-Slavic Balkan relict words in Serbo-Croatian. [25] [26] The word is, however, unattested in Bulgarian, per Skok and Matasovic. [27] [28] [d]

Etymology

The term Balaur (Aromanian bul'ar) is of unknown etymology. It has been linked with Albanian boljë/bollë ("snake") and buljar ("water snake"). [30] [1] The Transylvanian Saxon balaur "dragon", and balaura, an insult term in Serbia, are borrowed from Romanian. [31] [25]

The Albanian and Romanian terms possibly stem from the same Thracian root, *bell- or *ber- "beast, monster", [32] the traces of which can also be found in the name of the Greek mythological hero Bellerophon ("the beast killer"). [33] [31] Skok traces its appearance in Slavic to a possible "Illyrio-Thracian" word *bolauras > blavor. [34] However, Matasovic discards a Thracian source and considers the word to be ultimately of Illyrian origin, with the form *bulauras, leading to an ancient Slavic borrowing with the form *bъla(v)ur. [35]

Legacy

Sciences

The maniraptor theropod Balaur bondoc is named after this creature.

Video games

Television series

In the 2020 TV series Dracula , the Count uses the alias "Mr. Balaur".

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. ↑ Eliade refers to his paper on the snake stone (adder stone) "Piatra Sarpelui", Mesterului Manole, Bucharest, 1939, pp. 1–12.
  2. ↑ The scholar, Anna Plotnikova, concludes that this lamia lore has been "contaminated" with aspects of the lore about the water and air demon (i.e., the hala).
  3. ↑ German: ein goldene Zaum.
  4. ↑ However, Romanian Elena Mihaila-Scarlatoiu indicated that the Romanian word passed into the languages of the nearby regions, like Bulgarian, Albanian and Serbian. [29]

References

Citations
  1. 1 2 3 Nandris, Grigore (1966), "The Historical Dracula: The Theme of His Legend in the Western and in the Eastern Literatures of Europe", Comparative Literature Studies, 3 (4): 377; Reprinted in: Aldridge, Alfred Owen, ed. (1969). Comparative literature: matter and method . University of Illinois Press. p.  124. ISBN   9780252000164.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Sainéan, Lazare (1901), "Terminologie folklorique en roumain", La Tradition, 11: 227
  3. ↑ Murray, Eustace Clare Grenville. Doĭne: Or, the National Songs and Legends of Roumania . Smith, Elder. 1854. p. 137.
  4. ↑ Feraru, Leon (1929). The Development of Rumanian Poetry. Columbia University. p. 14.
  5. 1 2 Prut, Constantin [in Romanian] (1983), "The World of Fabulous Creatures", Romanian Review, 37 (2–3), translated by Sergiu Marcus: 170
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Pamfile, Tudor (1916). "bălaurii". Văzduhul după credințile poporului român. Academia română. Din vieața poporului român, culegeri și studii, XXV. București: Socec & comp. pp. 313–316. Alt URL
  7. ↑ Daniels, Cora Linn Morrison; Stevens, Charles McClellan (1903). Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World: A Comprehensive Library of Human Belief and Practice in the Mysteries of Life. J. H. Yewdale & sons Company. pp. 1419–1420.
  8. ↑ Eliade, Mircea (1996) [1958]. "167. The Degradation of Symbols". Patterns in Comparative Religion. Translated by Rosemary Sheed. U of Nebraska Press. p. 207. ISBN   0803267339.; (originally in Romanian) "Tratat De Istorie A Religiilor"
  9. ↑ Plotnikova, Anna (2001), "Ethnolinguistic phenomena in Boundary Balkan Slavic areas" (PDF), Славянская диалектная лексика и лингвогеография, 7: 306
  10. ↑ Florescu, Radu; McNally, Raymond T. (2009). Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times. Little, Brown. ISBN   9780316092265. Ismeju [the correct Romanian spelling is Zmeu, another word for dragon] ISBN   9-780-3160-9226-5
  11. ↑ Marian, S. F. (1879): "Cînd voiesc Solomonarii să se suie în nori, iau friul cel de aur şi se duc la un lac fără de fund sau la o altă apă mare, unde ştiu ei că locuiesc balaurii", quoted in: Hasdeu, Bogdan Petriceicu; Brâncuș, Grigore (1976) edd., Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae 3, p. 438.
  12. ↑ Marian, S. F. (1879), pp. 54–56, German (tr.), Gaster, Moses (1884), "Scholomonar, d. i. er Grabancijaš dijak nach der Voksüberlieferung er Rumänen ", Archiv für slavische PhilologieVII, p. 285: "Mit diesem Zaum zäumen die Solomonari die ihnen anstatt Pferde dienenden Drachen (Balauri)" or, "With these [golden] reins, the Solomonari rein their dragons (balauri) that they use instead of horses".
  13. ↑ Ljiljana, Marks (1990), "Legends about the Grabancijaš Dijak in the 19th Century and in Contemporary Writings", Acta Ethnographica Hungarica, 54 (2): 327
  14. ↑ Mihailascarlatoiu [Mihaila-Scarlatoiu], Elena (1972). "Emprunts Roumains dans le Lexique Serbo-Croate". Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes (in French). 10 (1): 95–113 [101].
  15. ↑ Mihailascarlatoiu [Mihaila-Scarlatoiu], Elena (1972). "Emprunts Roumains dans le Lexique Serbo-Croate". Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes (in French). 10 (1): 95–113 [101].
  16. ↑ Radu, Voica (2010). "Consideraţii etimologice privitoare la cuvântul balaur" [Some etymological considerations regarding the word "Dragon"]. Philologica Banatica (in Romanian). II: 20–25 [20].
  17. ↑ Radu, Voica (2010). "Consideraţii etimologice privitoare la cuvântul balaur" [Some etymological considerations regarding the word "Dragon"]. Philologica Banatica (in Romanian). II: 20–25 [21].
  18. ↑ Matasović, Ranko (1995). "Skokove 'ilirske' etimologije" [Skok's "Illyrian" etymologies]. Folia onomastica Croatica (in Croatian) (4): 89–101 [94].
  19. ↑ Skok, Peter (1930). "Zum Balkanlatein III". Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (in German). 50 (4): 484–532 [512–513]. doi:10.1515/zrph.1930.50.4.484.
  20. ↑ Skok, Petar (1988) [1971]. Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (in Croatian). Vol. 1. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti. p. 169. ISBN   86-407-0064-8.
  21. ↑ Bidwell, Charles E. (1963). "Some remarks on the reflexes of Vulgar Latin au in South Slavic". Romance Notes. 4 (2): 178–82 [180–181]. JSTOR   43800157. ... Blavor is attested in Montenegro and neighbouring areas ...
  22. ↑ Orel, Vladimir (1981). "К этимологии серб. блӑвор, рум. balaur, алб. bullar". ВМГУ (in Russian) (2): 72–6 [72]. В списки балканизмов это слово обычно включается как славянское соответствие алб. bullar ... , рум. balaur ...[In the list of Balkanisms, the word [blavor] is usually included as the Slavic correspondence to Albanian bullar ... , Romanian balaur ...]
  23. ↑ Šašel Kos, Marjeta (1993). "Cadmus and Harmonia in Illyria". Arheološki Vestnik. 44: 113–136 [125].
  24. ↑ Draucean, Adela Ileana (2008). "The Names of Romanian Fairy-Tale Characters in the Works of the Junimist Classics". In: Studii și cercetări de onomastică și lexicologie, II (1-2), p. 28. ISSN   2247-7330
  25. 1 2 Skok, Petar (1988) [1971]. Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (in Serbo-Croatian). Vol. 1. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti. p. 170. ISBN   86-407-0064-8.
  26. ↑ Šašel Kos, Marjeta (1993). "Cadmus and Harmonia in Illyria". Arheološki Vestnik. 44: 113–136 [125]. The word blavor ... is a pre-Slavic Balkanism.
  27. ↑ Matasović, Ranko (1995). "Skokove 'ilirske' etimologije" [Skok's "Illyrian" etymologies]. Folia onomastica Croatica (in Croatian) (4): 89–101 [94].
  28. ↑ Skok, Peter (1930). "Zum Balkanlatein III". Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie (in German). 50 (4): 484–532 [514]. doi:10.1515/zrph.1930.50.4.484.
  29. ↑ Mihailascarlatoiu [Mihaila-Scarlatoiu], Elena (1972). "Emprunts Roumains dans le Lexique Serbo-Croate". Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes (in French). 10 (1): 95-113 [101, 112 (abbreviations)]. Terme rencontré en dr., ar. d'oü il a passé dans le ngr., l'alb., le bg., le ser.[Word found in Daco-Romanian and Aromanian, from where it passed into Neo-Greek, Albanian, Bulgarian and Serbian.]
  30. ↑ Rosetti, Alexandru (1965). "La situation du romain parmi les langues balkaniques". Linguistica (in French). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 216–225 [222]. doi:10.1515/9783111349039-037. ISBN   978-3-11-134903-9. Voici l'énumération du fonds de vocabulaire que le roumain et l'albanais possèdent en commun: ... balaur s. m. "dragon, hydre; monstre": alb. bollë "grosse Schlange", g. bullar "Wasserschlange"...[The following is a list of shared words between Romanian and Albanian: ... balaur s. m. "dragon, hydra; monster": alb. bollë "large snake", g. bullar "water-snake"...]
  31. 1 2 Ciorănescu, Alexandru [in Romanian] (1958–1966), "balaur", Dicționarul etimologic român, Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife
  32. ↑ "... elementelor grevate de incertitudinea si confuzia divergentelor de opinii: (I) [first hypothesis] face parte din fondul prelatin, autohton a) din substratul comun român-albanez ... descinde, probabil, dintr-un radical tracic *bell- sau *ber - 'fiara'...". Rusnac, George. "Balaur (etimologii)". In: Analele ştiinţifice ale Universităţii «Alexandru Ioan Cuza» din Iaşi (Serie nouă, Secţiunea III, e. Lingvistică) vol. XXXVII-XXXVIII, 1991-1992, Omul şi limbajul său. Studia linguistica in honorem Eugenio Coseriu. Iasi: Editura Universitatii Al. I Cuza, 1992. pp. 351-360 [351].
  33. ↑ The dictionary of Juan de Corominas, cited in: Gáldi, L. [in Romanian] (1961), "(Review) Diccionario Etimológico Rumano, Biblioteca Filológica. Colección publicada por la Universidad de La Laguna by Alejandro Cioranescu", Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 11 (1/2): 197–198 JSTOR   44309193
  34. ↑ Skok, Petar (1988) [1971]. Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika (in Croatian). Vol. 3. Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti. p. 538. ISBN   86-407-0064-8.
  35. ↑ Matasović, Ranko (1995). "Skokove 'ilirske' etimologije" [Skok's "Illyrian" etymologies]. Folia onomastica Croatica (in Croatian) (4): 89–101 [94].
  36. ↑ "Balaur Dreadnought" at STOWiki.org Retrieved 2011-06-19.

Bibliography

  • Mihailascarlatoiu [Mihaila-Scarlatoiu], Elena (1972). "Emprunts Roumains dans le Lexique Serbo-Croate". Revue des Études Sud-Est Européennes (in French). 10 (1): 95–113 [101–102].
  • Orel, Vladimir (1981). "К этимологии серб. блӑвор, рум. balaur, алб. bullar". ВМГУ (in Russian) (2): 72–6.
  • Rusnac, George. "Balaur (etimologii)". In: Analele ştiinţifice ale Universităţii «Alexandru Ioan Cuza» din Iaşi (Serie nouă, Secţiunea III, e. Lingvistică) vol. XXXVII-XXXVIII, 1991-1992, Omul şi limbajul său. Studia linguistica in honorem Eugenio Coseriu. Iasi: Editura Universitatii Al. I Cuza, 1992. pp. 351-360.
  • Radu, Voica (2010). "Consideraţii etimologice privitoare la cuvântul balaur" [Some etymological considerations regarding the word "Dragon"]. Philologica Banatica (in Romanian). II: 20–25.

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