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The appearance of an ala is diversely and often vaguely described in folklore. A given ala may look like a black wind, a gigantic creature of indistinct form, a huge-mouthed, humanlike, or snakelike monster, a female dragon, or a raven. An ala may also assume various human or animal shapes, and can even possess a person's body.
The Bulgarian and Greek villages perform a unique annual ritual cycle, which begins on May 21 and ends on May 23 every year. The central figures of the tradition are Saint Constantine and Saint Helen, but all the significant days in this cycle coincide with important days in the Greek Orthodox calendar and are related to various Christian saints.
One such theory connects them to the masquerades of the ancient Roman winter festival of Bacchanalia, and earlier the Greek Dionysia. [ citation needed ] During the drunken, orgiastic parts of the festivals, people wearing masks, hidden under costumes in bestial shapes yet still appearing humanoid, may have made an exceptional impression on the ...
Pages in category "Bulgarian folklore" The following 29 pages are in this category, out of 29 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. A. Ala (demon) B.
The costumes cover most of the body and include decorated wooden masks of animals (sometimes double-faced) and large bells attached to the belt. Around New Year and before Lent , the kukeri walk and dance through villages to scare away evil spirits with their costumes and the sound of their bells.
The Proto-Slavic root *navь-, which forms one of the names for these beings, means "dead", [3] as these minor goddesses are conceived as the spirits of dead children or young women. They are represented as half-naked beautiful girls with long hair, but in the South Slavic tradition also as birds who soar in the depths of the skies.
The term "rusalka" derives from "rusalija" (Church Slavonic: рѹсалиѩ, Old East Slavic: русалиꙗ, Bulgarian: русалия, Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: русаље) which entered Slavic languages, via Byzantine Greek "rousália" (Medieval Greek: ῥουσάλια), [4] from the Latin "Rosālia" as a name for Pentecost and the days adjacent to it. [5]
Perperuna and Dodola – pagan folk festival celebrated in the Balkans that was used to bring rain. Some scholars suggest that the name of the festival originally may have been the name of a goddess, the wife of Perun. [71] Pizamar – deity mentioned in the Knýtlinga saga. The exact reading of the name is unclear, which has led some scholars ...