A balaur ( pl. ''balauri'') in

Romanian folklore The folklore of Romania is the collection of traditions of the Romanians. A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romania ...

is a type of many-headed

dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

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 (;Geʽez: ጊዮርጊስ, , ka, გიორგი, , , died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to holy tradition, he was a soldier in the ...

or the fair youth

Făt-Frumos Făt-Frumos (from Romanian language, Romanian ''făt'': son, infant; ''frumos'': handsome) is a knight hero in Romanian folklore, as exemplified in the fairy tale ''Făt-Frumos with the Golden Hair''. Făt-Frumos has to go through tests and ob ...

. 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 In causal inference, a confounder is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Confounding is a causal concept, and as such, cannot be described in terms of correlation ...

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 ...

) is the vehicle of the weather-controlling

Solomonari The Solomonar or Șolomonar (German language, German phonetization: ''Scholomonar'') is a Magician (fantasy), wizard believed in Romanian folklore to ride a dragon (zmeu or a balaur) and control the weather, causing rain, thunder, or hailstorm. Th ...

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 spelling: Roumanian; , or , ) is the official and main language of Romania and Moldova. Romanian is part of the Eastern Romance languages, Eastern Romance sub-branch of Romance languages, a linguistic group that evolved fr ...

, 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 ( or ; ''Kérberos'' ), often referred to as the hound of Hades, is a polycephaly, multi-headed dog that guards the gates of the Greek underworld, underworld to prevent the dead from leaving. He was the offspring o ...

or the hydra and are winged and golden, according to

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

. 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 ...

, 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

("Handsome Lad"). The balaur may also be the abductor of the princess

Ileana Cosânzeana Ileana Cosânzeana is a figure in Folklore of Romania, Romanian mythology. She is represented as a beautiful and good-natured princess or daughter of an Emperor,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 Tudor Pamfile (11 June 1883 – 21 October 1921) was a Romanian writer. Tudor Pamfile was born on 11 June 1883 in the village of Țepu in Tecuci County (now in Galați County). He attended primary school and the gymnasium in Tecuci, and then t ...

, 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 on the earth 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" () where they produce precious stones. In

Wallachia Wallachia or Walachia (; ; : , : ) is a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians. Wallachia was traditionally divided into two sections, Munteni ...

, 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 History of religion, historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. One of the most influential scholars of religion of the 20th century and in ...

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 the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agriculture ...

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

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; ). The dragons were usually kept hidden in the depths of a lake, until summoned by their riders.

Name

In Eastern Romance

The word is attested in Daco-Romanian and Aromanian. In

the word appears with variations: ''balaoană'', ''bălăuraş'', ''bălăurel'', ''balaurel'', ''bălăuroaică'', ''bălăuaua'', and possibly in the shorter form ''bală''. 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'.

Slavic comparanda

According to Ranko Matasovic, the word appears along the eastern coast of the

Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Se ...

. In this regard, Croatian linguist Peter Skok located the following variations of the lexeme: * ''blavor'' (Montenegro and Dalmatia); ''blavorak'' (diminutive, attested in a 16th century writer from Ragusa); ''blavūr'' (Ragusa); ''blavòruša'' (aumentative; Montenegro) * ''bläor'' (Imotski, Podlug in Cattaro, Benkovac, Jagodnja, Sibenik - all in Dalmatia); ''blőr''; ''blőruša'' (Montenegro) * ''blaur'' (Dalmatia), ''blavorina'' (aumentative, Koprivno in Sinj, Dalm.), ''blaorina'' (Ervenik, Dalm.) * ''blahor'' (Nevesinje in Herzegovina) * ''blabor'' (Tribanj, Dalm.), ''blaborina'' (aumentative) The

Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...

''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 word is, however, unattested in Bulgarian, per Skok and Matasovic.

Etymology

The term ''Balaur'' ( Aromanian ''bul'ar'') is of unknown etymology. It has been linked with

Albanian Albanian may refer to: *Pertaining to Albania in Southeast Europe; in particular: **Albanians, an ethnic group native to the Balkans **Albanian language **Albanian culture **Demographics of Albania, includes other ethnic groups within the country ...

''boljë''/''bollë'' ("snake") and ''buljar'' ("water snake"). The

Transylvanian Saxon The Transylvanian Saxons (; Transylvanian Saxon: ''Siweberjer Såksen'' or simply ''Soxen'', singularly ''Sox'' or ''Soax''; Transylvanian Landler: ''Soxn'' or ''Soxisch''; ; seldom ''sași ardeleni/transilvăneni/transilvani''; ) are a people ...

''balaur'' "dragon", and ''balaura'', an insult term in Serbia, are borrowed from Romanian. The Albanian and Romanian terms possibly stem from the same

Thracian The Thracians (; ; ) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied the area that today is shared between north-eastern Greece, ...

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

Bellerophon Bellerophon or Bellerophontes (; ; lit. "slayer of Belleros") or Hipponous (; lit. "horse-knower"), was a divine Corinthian hero of Greek mythology, the son of Poseidon and Eurynome, and the foster son of Glaukos. He was "the greatest her ...

("the beast killer"). Skok traces its appearance in Slavic to a possible " Illyrio-Thracian" word ''*bolauras'' > ''blavor''. 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 Slavic, Slav or Slavonic may refer to: Peoples * Slavic peoples, an ethno-linguistic group living in Europe and Asia ** East Slavic peoples, eastern group of Slavic peoples ** South Slavic peoples, southern group of Slavic peoples ** West Slav ...

borrowing with the form ''*bъla(v)ur''.

Legacy

Sciences

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, Dromaeosauridae, Troodontidae ...

theropod Theropoda (; from ancient Greek , (''therion'') "wild beast"; , (''pous, podos'') "foot"">wiktionary:ποδός"> (''pous, podos'') "foot" is one of the three major groups (clades) of dinosaurs, alongside Ornithischia and Sauropodom ...

Balaur bondoc ''Balaur bondoc'' is a species of paravian theropod dinosaur from the late Cretaceous period, in what is now Romania. It is the type species of the monotypic genus ''Balaur'', after the '' balaur'' (), a dragon of Romanian folklore. The specifi ...

'' is named after this creature.

Popular culture

Video games

* 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 ''Star Trek Online'' is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Cryptic Studios based on the ''Star Trek'' franchise. The game is set in the 25th century, 30 years after the events of '' Star Trek: Nemesis''. ''Star Trek O ...

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

railgun A railgun or rail gun, sometimes referred to as a rail cannon, is a linear motor device, typically designed as a ranged weapon, that uses Electromagnet, electromagnetic force to launch high-velocity Projectile, projectiles. The projectile norma ...

weapon named the Balaur.

Television series

In the 2020 TV series ''

Dracula ''Dracula'' is an 1897 Gothic fiction, Gothic horror fiction, horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker. The narrative is Epistolary novel, related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist and opens ...

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

Explanatory notes

References

;Citations

Bibliography

* * * 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. *