Pozoj

The legend about the pozoj (dragon in local dialect) from Čičanjska Jama (jama here meaning marsh, lake, river tributary) near Donji Vidovec, Međimurje, Croatia:

It was long known that there was a pozoj (dragon) in Čičanjska Marsh whose tail was under the Church. [In the legends from the area, dragons were always huge, always lived under ground and always had a tail under some church]

Namely, when the pozoj (dragon) turned over in the marsh, all the candles fell of  the altar in the Church. It happened once that a young gentleman dressed in a black suit came to the village. He went to the parish house and talked at length there with the parish priest...

Then the parish priest called the sacristan, who led that man to Čičanjska Marsh. That man carried a large book under his arm. He was a grabancijaš [literally black scholar, black student, man in black 🙂 the only person who can control and defeat pozojs (dragons)]...

When they reached the marsh, he went very close to it, and stood on the root of an alder shrub and started thus to read from the book. The sacristan hid a little further away in the reeds and watched all that was happening...

All of a sudden the water started to be disturbed and a pozoj’s (dragon's) head appeared. The grabancijaš (black student, man in black) then grabbed a golden bridle and threw it over the pozoj (dragon). And he kept on reading from the book...

When the pozoj’s (dragon's) body was half out of the water, the grabancijaš (black student, man in black) jumped upon him and rode him to the south. Thee pozoj (dragon) had such a long tail that he dragged one part of it along the ground as he  flew...

Suddenly a wind came up, it clouded over and hail began to fall, as fat as a walnut, so that it destroyed everything from the Dravica Stream to the Drava River...

The shepherds on the upland pasture grazing their cows could clearly see the pozoj’s (dragon's) tail as well as his rear legs. The reverend parish priest said later that the grabancijaš (black scholar, man in black) had ridden the pozoj (dragon) to Africa...

In this legend we see that as soon as grabancijaš (black student, man in black) rides the pozoj (dragon) away, hail storm starts which destroys the village land...

I believe that Suzana Marjanić, the author of the paper "Dragon and Hero or How to Kill a Dragon – on the Example of the Legends of Međimurje about the Grabancijaš and the DragonZmaj i junak ili kako ubiti zmaja na primjeru međimurskih predaja o grabancijašu i pozoju" wrongly believes that it is grabancijaš (black student, man in black) who causes the hailstorm...

It is actually his action of taking the dragon away that causes the hailstorm... Because it was dragon that protected the village from the hailstorms and other bad weather...This is a common mythological theme found in the Balkans among South Slavs...

Bulgarians, Serbs and Macedonians believed that it was male dragons (of a fire breathing kind) called "zmaj" which protected their territory from evil female dragons called "ala", whose main activity was to lead storm and hail clouds over fields to destroy crops...

Whenever a "zmaj" (male dragon) noticed an "ala" (female dragon) approaching, he would fly up into the clouds to fight against her and chase her away. He shot fiery arrows and stones at her, which produced lightning and thunder...

Zmaj (male dragon) was benevolent toward the humans,  and he took care that his territory received the right amount of rain at the right time, for good growth of the crops...

If a village didn't have its own "zmaj" (male dragon), it had its "zmajeviti čovek" (dragon man). The dragon man was believed to posses the same supernatural powers possessed by a dragon and to act similar to the dragon when it came to bad weather and especially hailstorms...

As soon as he saw bad weather approaching, which he knew was brought by an ala (evil female dragon), the dragon man would leave whatever he was doing, and fly up to confront the demon...

This he did by falling into a deep sleep, or entering a state similar to death, usually at the very spot where he happened to be at that time. His soul then left his body in the form of a snake, and soared skywards to confront the ala inside the hailstorm clouds...

It was claimed that he was not breathing as long as his soul was absent from his body. The battle could last for a whole day, or even for several days, during which time the man lay unconscious, sweating profusely from the exertion of the fight...

He should not be pushed or moved while in this state: if he was not in the same position as when he fell asleep, his soul would not be able to return into his body, and he would die...

Now here is an interesting twist: in some regions of Serbia, people believed that it was actually ala (female dragon) which was  connected to a territory, which she defended against attacks by the ale (female dragons) from other territories...

In the past, in the villages that now form part of the city of Kruševac, Serbia, when blessings were pronounced on Christmas Eve, the villagers would also say, "God, save our guardian ala"...

People interpreted hail ravaging their crops as a defeat of their ala (female dragon) by an ala (female dragon) from elsewhere. The victorious ala (female dragon) would loot the crop yield of the ravaged area, and transfer it to her own territory...

Further twist: in Banat and some areas of eastern Serbia, the dragon men were referred to as "alovit". This adjective is derived from the noun ala, and means "being like ala, having supernatural properties"...

In these areas people believed that an alovit man can gather a hailstorm and guide it to the fields of another village in order to destroy them...

But they also protected their village from these attacks At the sight of hail clouds, the alovit man would fall into a trance-like sleep. His soul would then fly up to the clouds, where he would fight the soul of the alovit man who created and guided the storm...

So...Back to the original story...The grabancijaš (black student, man in black), takes the dragon (the protector from hail) away, and the hail destroys the village land...

However, in Slovenian legends the grabancijaš (black student, man in black) drives out the dragon because the dragon causes the stormy weather or the serious weather predicament...This is obviously not a dragon, but an ala...

Interstingly in Slovenia, the dragon fighter is known as Kresnik (Fiery one, from kres=fire)...This is very important, you'll why soon...A fiery being just like dragon, who fights alas....

In Hungarian folk legends,  garabonciás was believed to be capable of whipping up storms or hail showers, or alternatively, of driving them away. Just like in Serbia...

Hungarians believe the same about dragons, too. They can create storms or hail showers, or alternatively, drive them away. Except that Hungarians forgot that hailstorms are created by female dragons (ala) and that the dragons that drive hailstorms away are male dragons (zmaj)...

PS:

The above article was originally a twitter thread...After I finished it, at the very end, I realised that I made a mistake at the very beginning of my opening argument...So here is the correction 🙂 ...

The pozoj from Čičanjska Jama is a female dragon (ala)...Not a male dragon (zmaj)...

I still think that it wasn't the grabancijaš (black student, man in black, the dragon fighter) who causes the hailstorm...Even though they can do that...

But I also don't think that it is actually his action of taking the dragon away that causes the hailstorm... I thought that the hailstorm destroyed the village land because pozoj was a male dragon (zmaj), which protects the village from the hailstorms and other bad weather...

But now I think that pozoj was an ala (evil female dragon). And that it was pozoj herself who caused the hailstorm while flying over the village land. Which is what alas do...They create and use hailstorms and bad weather to destroy crops and steal fertility of the land...

Whatever (whoever) can create ice in the middle of summer, which is the main hailstorm season, has to be very very very cold... And if it wasn't for my dyslexia and me trying to do two things at the same time, I would have not missed the last line of the legend which says this:

I ended with this:

"...The reverend parish priest said later that the grabancijaš had ridden the pozoj to Africa." 

I missed this:

"The pozoj has such cold meat that the Africans put a piece of it under the tongue and it keeps them cool all day." 

And ala is a personification of hail, ice storm, destructive cold weather, in the middle of summer...

How "cool" is this? 🙂

But this doesn't really change the validity of the rest of my argument...So if you are interested in dragons, I think you will definitely enjoy this article...

To read more about Slavic dragon lore and to understand why it is Male Dragon that fights the ice storms, check this post about "Letnitsa treasure"...