A balaur ( pl. ''balauri'') in Romanian folklore is a type of many-headed

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted a ...

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. The balaur in folktale is typically evil, demanding or abducting young maidens or the princess, and defeated by the hero such as

Saint George Saint George ( Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldie ...

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 The ''Zmeu'' (plural: ''zmei'', feminine: ''zmeoaică'' / ''zmeoaice'') is a fantastic creature of Romanian folklore and Romanian mythology. Though referred by some sources as a dragon, the zmeu is nevertheless distinct, because it usually has c ...

) 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 Romanian (obsolete spellings: Rumanian or Roumanian; autonym: ''limba română'' , or ''românește'', ) is the official and main language of Romania and the Republic of Moldova. As a minority language it is spoken by stable communities in ...

, balauri are "monstrous serpents" or dragons. Alternatively, the word balaur can be used to describe any monster like creature. They are many-headed like the Greek hell-hound

Cerberus In Greek mythology, Cerberus (; grc-gre, Κέρβερος ''Kérberos'' ), often referred to as the hound of Hades, is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. He was the offspring of the ...

or the hydra and are winged and golden, according to

Lazăr Șăineanu Lazăr Șăineanu (, also spelled Șeineanu, born Eliezer Schein;Leopold, p.383, 417 Francisized Lazare Sainéan, , Alexandru Mușina"Țara turcită", in ''România Literară'', Nr. 19/2003 or Sainéanu; April 23, 1859 – May 11, 1934) was a R ...

. As reported by journalist

Eustace Clare Grenville Murray Eustace Clare Grenville Murray (182420 December 1881) was an English journalist. Life Murray was the illegitimate son of Richard Grenville, second duke of Buckingham and Chandos. Born in 1824, he matriculated from Magdalen Hall, Oxford, on 1 Ma ...

, in Romanian folklore the ''balaur'' or ''balaurul'' is a serpentine being who guards treasures and princesses, coming to blows against heroic Fêt-Frumos. 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"). The balaur may also be the abductor of the princess Ileana Cosânzeana, although according to Șăineanu the kidnapper of this princess is a ''

'' in the form of giant with pebbly tails (or scaly tails). It is noted that the balaur and the zmeu are often confounded with each other. According to folklorist Tudor Pamfile, there are three types of balauri in folk tradition: water-, land-, and air-dwelling. A type of balaur of the first type is a seven-headed monster that dwells in the

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

of a village, demanding maidens as sacrifice until defeated by either the hero named Busuioc or by

. The second type of balaur, according to Pamfile, is said to dwell in the "Armenian land" ( ro, ) where they produce precious stones. In

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...

, it is also believed that the saliva of a balaur can form precious stones, according to American writer Cora Linn Daniels. Romanian scholar

Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religiou ...

noted that the notion a precious stones are formed from a snake's spittle is widespread, from England to China. The balaur is often associated with the weather and is alternatively called ''hala'' or ''ala'', which is usually a Slavic term for a weather demon. This is the type Pamfile calls the "third type" that is air-dwelling. When two balauri meet and fight in the air, there ensues various

meteorological Meteorology is a branch of the atmospheric sciences (which include atmospheric chemistry and physics) with a major focus on weather forecasting. The study of meteorology dates back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not ...

damages such as uprooting of trees, or objects being tossed about. Another tradition is that the balaur uses the rainbow as its path and sucks moisture from any spot in order to cause rain. 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. Although the dragons ridden by the Solomonari are often said to be ''zmei'' ( sing. ''zmeu''), they were ''balauri'' according to some sources. A balaur was controlled by these weather-controlling sorcerers using "a golden rein" (or golden bridle; ro, ).. The dragons were usually kept hidden in the depths of a lake, until summoned by their riders.

Etymology

The term ''Balaur'' ( Aromanian ''bul'ar'') is of unknown etymology. It has been linked with Albanian ''boljë''/''bollë'' ("snake") and ''buljar'' ("water snake"), terms possibly stemming from the same

Thracian The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...

root, ''*bell-'' or ''*ber-'' "beast, monster", the traces of which can also be found in the name of the Greek mythological hero

Bellerophon Bellerophon (; Ancient Greek: Βελλεροφῶν) or Bellerophontes (), born as Hipponous, was a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and h ...

("the beast killer"). The

Transylvanian Saxon The Transylvanian Saxons (german: Siebenbürger Sachsen; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjer Såksen''; ro, Sași ardeleni, sași transilvăneni/transilvani; hu, Erdélyi szászok) are a people of German ethnicity who settled in Transylvania ...

''balaur'' "dragon", and ''balaura'', an insult term in Serbia, are borrowed from Romanian. The

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian () – also called Serbo-Croat (), Serbo-Croat-Bosnian (SCB), Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian (BCS), and Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS) – is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia an ...

''blavor''/''blaor''/''blavur'' (" European legless lizard") is cognate with ''balaur'', and is regarded as one of the few pre-Slavic Balkan relict words in Serbo-Croatian. The

maniraptor Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs which includes the birds and the non-avian dinosaurs that were more closely related to them than to ''Ornithomimus velox''. It contains the major subgroups Avialae, Deinonychosauria, Oviraptoro ...

theropod Theropoda (; ), whose members are known as theropods, is a dinosaur clade that is characterized by hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb. Theropods are generally classed as a group of saurischian dinosaurs. They were ancestrally c ...

'' Balaur bondoc'' is named after this creature.

Popular culture

* In the

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

'' Aion'', the Dragons that once ruled the world and are the enemy are called the Balaur. * In the

'' Star Trek Online'' the largest class of Gorn warship is the Balaur Dreadnought."Balaur Dreadnought" at STOWiki.org
/ref> Retrieved 2011-06-19. * In '' Ace Combat: Joint Assault'', there is a gigantic

railgun A railgun or rail gun is a linear motor device, typically designed as a weapon, that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles. The projectile normally does not contain explosives, instead relying on the projectile's high ...

weapon named the Balaur. *In the 2020 TV series ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taki ...

'', the Count uses the alias "Mr. Balaur".

Explanatory notes

References

;Citations {{reflist, 30em, refs= {{citation, last=Ciorănescu , first=Alexandru , author-link=:ro:Alexandru Ciorănescu , title=balaur , work=Dicționarul etimologic român , publisher=Universidad de la Laguna, Tenerife , year=1958–1966, url=https://www.webdex.ro/online/dictionarul_etimologic_roman/balaur The dictionary of Juan de Corominas, cited in: {{citation, last=Gáldi , first=L. , author-link=:ro:László Gáldi , title=(Review) Diccionario Etimológico Rumano, Biblioteca Filológica. Colección publicada por la Universidad de La Laguna by Alejandro Cioranescu , journal=Acta Linguistica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae , volume=11 , number=1/2 , year=1961 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h_BWAAAAIAAJ&q=Bellerophon , pages=197–198 {{jstor, 44309193 {{cite book, last=Eliade , first=Mircea , author-link=Mircea Eliade , translator=Rosemary Sheed , chapter=167. The Degradation of Symbols , title=Patterns in Comparative Religion , publisher=U of Nebraska Press , orig-year=1958 , year=1996 , chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KxliotWdzXIC&pg=PA207 , page=207, isbn=0803267339 ; (originally in Romanian)
Tratat De Istorie A Religiilor
{{cite book, last=Feraru , first=Leon , author-link=Leon Feraru , title=The Development of Rumanian Poetry , publisher=Columbia University , year=1929 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MDBIAAAAMAAJ , page=14 {{cite book, last1=Florescu , first1=Radu , author-link=Radu Florescu , last2=McNally , first2=Raymond T. , title=Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times , publisher=Little, Brown , year=2009, isbn=9780316092265 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Zot08bJa3FAC&pg=PT217 , quote=''Ismeju'' he correct Romanian spelling is ''Zmeu'', another word for dragon} {{isbn, 9-780-3160-9226-5 {{citation, last=Ljiljana , first=Marks , title=Legends about the ''Grabancijaš Dijak'' in the 19th Century and in Contemporary Writings , journal=Acta Ethnographica Hungarica , volume=54 , number=2 , year=1990 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SkwqAQAAIAAJ&q=%22solomonar%22 , page=327 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., ''{{plain link, name=Etymologicum Magnum Romaniae , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gAN_9QPRU1gC&q=balaurii'' 3, p. 438. 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 Philologie'' VII, p. 285: "''Mit diesem Zaum zäumen die Solomonari die ihnen anstatt Pferde dienenden Drachen'' (''Balauri'')" or, "With these

olden Olden may refer to: Places *Olden, Norway, a village in Stryn, Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway *Olden, Missouri, an unincorporated community *Olden, Texas, a community in Eastland county, Texas, USA People *Charles Smith Olden, an American polit ...

reins, the Solomonari rein their dragons (''balauri'') that they use instead of horses". {{citation, last=Nandris , first=Grigore , author-link=Grigore Nandriș , title=The Historical Dracula: The Theme of His Legend in the Western and in the Eastern Literatures of Europe , journal=Comparative Literature Studies , volume=3 , number=4 , year=1966 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SkwqAQAAIAAJ&q=%22solomonar%22 , page=377; Reprinted in: {{cite book, editor-last=Aldridge , editor-first=Alfred Owen , editor-link=Alfred Owen Aldridge , title=Comparative literature: matter and method , publisher=University of Illinois Press , year=1969 , url=https://archive.org/details/comparativeliter00aldr , url-access=registration , pag
124
} {{cite book, last=Pamfile , first=Tudor , author-link=Tudor Pamfile , chapter=bălaurii , title=Văzduhul după credințile poporului român , place=București , publisher=Socec & comp. , year=1916 , series=Academia română. Din vieața poporului român, culegeri și studii, XXV , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QHMkAQAAIAAJ&q=%22b%C4%83laurii , pages=313–316 }
Alt URL
/ref> {{citation, last=Plotnikova , first=Anna , title=Ethnolinguistic phenomena in Boundary Balkan Slavic areas , journal=Славянская диалектная лексика и лингвогеография , volume=7 , year=2001 , url=http://inslav.ru/images/stories/pdf/ISD-07-2001.pdf , page=306 {{citation, last=Prut, first=Constantin , author-link=:ro:Constantin Prut , translator=Sergiu Marcus , title=The World of Fabulous Creatures , journal=Romanian Review , volume=37 , number=2–3 , year=1983 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E-csAAAAIAAJ&q=zmeu+giant , page=170 {{citation, last=Sainéan , first=Lazare , author-link=Lazăr Șăineanu , title=Terminologie folklorique en roumain , journal=La Tradition , volume=11 , year=1901 , url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OeM5AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA227 , page=227 {{Citation, last=Skok, first=Petar, author-link=Petar Skok, year=1988, orig-year=1971, title=Etimologijski rječnik hrvatskoga ili srpskoga jezika, volume=1, publisher=Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, place=Zagreb, language=sh, isbn=86-407-0064-8, page=170, mode=cs1

General description

Etymology

Popular culture

See also

Explanatory notes

References

Further reading