Balaur

The balaur is the many-headed serpent-dragon of Romanian folklore, a monster of waters and caves that heroes such as Făt-Frumos must kill, and the storm mount ridden by the wizards called solomonari.

What Is a Balaur?

The balaur is the classic monster-dragon of Romanian fairy tales and folk belief. It is a huge serpent, often with several heads (three, seven, and twelve are common in the tales), and descriptions may also give it wings, feet, or fins. Balauri live in lakes, wells, and caves, block springs, and demand victims. In the fairy tales, a hero, typically the brave and handsome Făt-Frumos, rides out to kill the balaur, cuts off its heads one by one, and frees a princess or a captured kingdom.

Romanian folklore has two very different kinds of dragon, and they are easy to confuse. The balaur is a beast. The zmeu is a giant, dragon-like man who talks, rides, marries, and keeps a household. Some storytellers and scholars blur the two, so the same creature may be called by either name in different versions.

Balaur Beliefs

Village belief explained where balauri come from. A common idea held that a snake which lives for many years without being seen by any human grows into a balaur. Balauri were also tied to storms. The solomonari, wandering wizards said to learn their magic in a secret school under a lake or in the underworld, were believed to summon a balaur from the deep waters and ride it through the clouds, bringing hail and storms. This links the balaur to weather and water like many other dragons of southeastern Europe, such as the Albanian kulshedra.

The Name

Linguists usually treat balaur as one of the small group of Romanian words that are older than Latin, from the language of the ancient Dacians or Thracians. It is often compared with the Albanian bollë, a great serpent that turns into a dragon, which suggests the two may share a common Balkan root.

In the Fairy Tales

The balaur became familiar to Romanian readers through the great 19th-century collections of folk tales, above all Petre Ispirescu's Legende sau basmele românilor ("Legends or Fairy Tales of the Romanians," 1872). His collection includes a tale titled Balaurul cel cu șapte capete, "The Seven-Headed Balaur." Several of Ispirescu's tales were translated into English in The Foundling Prince and Other Tales (1917).

Legacy

The balaur appears in Romanian art, folk carving, and children's books. In 2010 paleontologists named a small, fierce predatory dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Romania Balaur bondoc, which roughly means "stocky dragon." For other dragons of the region, see Dragons Across Cultures and the Hydra, the most famous many-headed serpent of the ancient world.

Related

• Zmeu: The zmeu is a giant, dragon-like ogre of Romanian fairy tales, a humanlike being of enormous strength who can fly and shapeshift, kidnaps princesses such as Ileana Cosânzeana, and is defeated by the hero Făt-Frumos.
• Kulshedra: The kulshedra is a monstrous, many-headed female dragon of Albanian folklore who spits fire, hoards water to cause drought, and is fought in storms by the winged hero called the drangue.
• Bolla: The bolla is a serpent demon of Albanian folklore that keeps its eyes closed all year except on Saint George's Day, devours any human it sees, and if left unseen for many years grows into the dragon kulshedra.
• Zmaj: The zmaj is the dragon of South Slavic folklore, a fiery, winged, often protective being that guards fields from hail-bringing demons, takes human lovers, and fathers heroes such as Zmaj Ognjeni Vuk.
• Lernaean Hydra: The Lernaean Hydra is a many-headed water serpent of Greek myth that grew new heads when one was cut off, killed by Heracles and Iolaus as his second labor.
• Dragons Across Cultures
• The Hydra

Sources and Further Reading

• Petre Ispirescu, Legende sau basmele românilor (Bucharest, 1872)
• Petre Ispirescu, The Foundling Prince and Other Tales, trans. Julia Collier Harris and Rea Ipcar (Houghton Mifflin, 1917)
• Marcel Olinescu, Mitologie românească (Bucharest, 1944; repr. Saeculum I.O., 2003)

Cite this entry: “Balaur,” Draconika Encyclopedia of Dragons, https://www.draconika.com/dragons/balaur.