Dewy head

"Greetings to the hair of your head, spun like silk,

and to your head with its curly locks,

O George, star brighter than (other) stars!

May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning,

like the rain of grace a thirsty field!"

This is one stanza of the liturgical poem መልክአ፡ ጊዮርጊስ፡, "The Image of George". This genre of poems praises the body parts of a saint from the head and down to the feet...

Ethiopia, 18th c.

I want to thank @ArtEthiopic for all his hard work promoting amazing Ethiopian religious art...

And I want to add few comments that might explain the last two verses:

"May the ointment of his dewy head refresh me every morning, like the rain of grace a thirsty field..."

Rains arrive to Ethiopia in Mar/Apr...Right on time for St Georges day...Full blown monsoon starts in Jun...You can read about Ethiopian climate here...

Interestingly, in Serbian Orthodox calendar, the beginning and the end of the "Time of Dragons", the hot sunny half of the year, is marked (guarded) by Two Georges, Summer and Winter St George('s day)...In Ethiopia, the climate is the opposite to the one in Serbia...I wrote about this in my post "Two Georges"...

Speaking of dew, this also might be of interest:

Irish riddle

Q: I wash my face in water that has never rained nor run, and dry it in a towel that was never wove on spun   

A: A face washed in Mayday dew and dried in the open air.  

The same tradition is in the Balkans linked to St George's day, Jurjevo. 

On the morning of St George's day, girls would go to fields to wash their faces in dew, so that they are beautiful all year round. Recorded in Skopska Crna Gora region of Macedonia.

This ritual was widespread among Serbs too, where dew bathing was done on the so called "herb Friday", the last Friday before St George's day, when medicinal herbs were also collected because people believed that they were the most potent on that day. This would explain why washing your face with the morning dew collected from these the plants on that morning was also the most beneficial...I talked about this in my posts "Morning dew" and "Jani", "Parilia"...

Many other traditions which are in Celtic parts of Europe linked to Beltane, 1st of May, are in the Balkans linked to St George's day, indicating that these two calendar markers are one and the same...

Red archer

"A savage Dragon lives in the forest, / Most venomous he is [...] / In the hour of his death / His venom becomes the great Medicine". Book of Lambspring 15 c...

Fiery (fire breathing) dragon, symbol of the destructive sun's heat during the hot, dry half of the year, which peaks in in Leo, Jul/Aug, the hottest and dries time of the year in continental Europe, Levant, Central Asia, Mesopotamia, Iran...

I talked about this dragon in Mesopotamia in my post "Seven headed dragon"...

In Mesopotamia, summer lasted seven (hot) months...Which is why local dragon (dragon = symbol of summer), had seven snake heads (snake = symbols of sun's heat)...Oh, and look, we also have dragon killer(s) and the princess 🙂 

And in my posts "Angra Minyu", "The king killing Angra Mainyu", "Sacred hunt"...

Why were Persian kings so obsessed with lion hunt? Cause they were reenacting the annual fight between the Rain season (Rain god) and the Dry season (Lion/Dragon) in which the rain god always wins...

And I talked about this dragon in Europe in my posts "Scaring off dragon", "Dragons always get killed", "Letnitsa treasure", "Dragon who stole rain", "The damned"

In Bulgaria, at the start of summer, all the strong and healthy village men would gather at midnight, strip naked and walk the village land in ritual silence brandishing axes or cudgels, weapons of thunder gods "to scare the dragon who steals the waters" 

And I talked about this dragon in Central Asia in my posts: "Bactrian snakes and dragons". 

In all these places, dragon always marks Jul/Aug, the hottest and driest time of the year...

Is the venom the water that dragon (drought) stole? Which gets released when dragon dies (drought ends) and the waters that dragon stole get released as rain and flowing water?

It is the main duty of all the thunder gods to kill the snake/dragon and release the waters the dragon stole...

So is the archer depicted pointing its arrow at the dragon a thunder god? This guy depicted here with a bow, killing the blazing sun that causes drought?

Until recently I would have been sure it was. In Fertile Crescent, where I think this fire breathing dragon mythology originated, the year is divided into two halves, 

And right at the beginning of the rain season, lightning arrows start shooting from the night sky. Orionids....

And if arrows are shooting down from the night sky, there must be an [invisible] archer shooting them from up there. Orion...

I talked about this father of all thunder gods in my post "Invisible archer"...

But now I know that there are two Great Archers in the sky. One that shoots his arrows towards Earth in Oct/Nov (Orion), and the other one that shoots his arrows towards Earth in Jul/Aug (Perseus)...

I stumbled across this while I was writing my article "Apollo the great archer" about why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

And I have a feeling that the red dude from the original image is the later...The one which was marked by Mesopotamians with the bow and arrow constellation...

Question here, which I will try to answer soon: Did Mesopotamians see both Great Archers as one, just shooting at two different times of the year?

And the one which was in India called Rudra/Indra, the leader of the army of Rudras/Maruts armed with golden spears...I talked about this in my post "Rudra"...

And the one whom Greeks called Perseus...And Heracles...I talked about him in my post "Cetus"...

And the one whom Serbs call Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the Thunderer), a very very strange saint celebrated in Jul/Aug...

Amazing picture. Elijah's Chariots of Fire, Byzantine Museum, Athens, Greece. 

When I wrote my articles about him, "The thundering sun god", "Alidjun", "Zodiac killer", I already suspected that Elijah the Thunderer was not just simple replacement for Perun, Slavic thunder god. Like in Greece where he seem to have replaced Zeus, because most holy places associated with Elijah in Greece are mountain tops once associated with Zeus... 

The reason why I thought that there was more to Elijah, is because Serbs believed that Every August 2nd, the hottest day of the year, Ilija Gromovnik (Elijah the Thunderer) is about to burn the world to ashes, but his sister/wife Ognjena Marija (Fiery Mary), another strange Serbian saint, persuades him not to do it. 

This Russian "Christian" icon depicts Ognjena Marija or the "Fiery Mary" surrounded with fiery wheels of Perun, inside the burning flame. 

This is why I called him The Thundering Sun God/Saint...But I couldn't fully make sense of him...

Then while I was writing my article "Croesus" I came across "Thundering Apollo" which sounded very similar to The Thundering Sun God/Saint from Serbian folklore...

It all finally made sense when I discovered the reason why Apollo was "the most feared archer"...

You should check my articles about Apollo if you want to fully understand what I am talking about here:

"Palil". About "Palil" a nickname of Nergal, the terrible, burning, destructive sun of Jul/Aug, Leo...And about the origin of the name Apollo and its meaning...

"Lord of the flies". About Nergal and Apollo as "The lords of the flies"...And about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the peak of the fly and fly born diseases season in Northern Hemisphere...

"Lions of Delos". About the Lions of Delos, the burning destructive sun in Jul/Aug, Leo, and the fact that both Nergal and Apollo are linked to lions. 

"Apollo and dolphins". About Jul/Aug, Leo being the "best time to sail in Eastern Mediterranean", and the link between dolphins and Lions...and Apollo...

"Marble throne of Apollo". About snakes (symbols of sun's heat), dragons (symbols of burning sun's heat) and terrible sun gods, Nergal and Apollo who are dragons themselves...

"Apollo and Python". About why Python followed Apollo after his birth? Cause snakes are solar animals...According to the Delphian tradition, Apollo was born on the 7th day of the month of Bysios (Jan/Feb)

"White raven". About the black and white raven legend which is found in both Nergal and Apollo mythology, Egyptian vultures and the twins that guard the gates of hell. And some other weird stuff...

"Threshing floor of Apollo". About the threshing floors as solar observatories/temples, about the threshing floor of Apollo from Delphi, about Jul/Aug, Leo, being the holy month of Apollo, and about solar bonfires...

"Apollo the great archer". About why Apollo was the terrible "far shooting" archer...About arrow and bow constellation from Mesopotamia, Ishtar, Sirius, and Jul/Aug, the season of Perseid meteor shower...

"Apollo Sminthius". About Apollo and peak infectious diseases season, Jul/Aug

That's it. To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

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"...

Alexander romance

Alexander Romance is a fictional account of the life of Alexander the Great, originally written in Greek, in the early 4th c. It was widely copied and translated. This is one of the pics from the Armenian illuminated manuscript of 14th century of 5th century translation. 

I would here like to talk about the part which talks about Alexander's conception and birth. The story goes like this:

The last Egyptian Pharaoh (and evil wizard) Nectanebo, is thrown out of Egypt by a Barbarian army lead by Egyptian gods themselves (sure sign it's time to pack and leave). He disguises himself as a fortuneteller and flies to Macedonia...

It just so happens that King Philip is out fighting some war or something and his gorgeous wife Olympia is all alone and lonely lonesome...And apparently Nectanebo likes the ladies...So he devises a cunning plan how to get into Olympia's bed...

He uses horoscope to convince Olympia, who had no children, and who was afraid Philip was about to replace her with another wife, that Amun Ra (Sun god) will come to her and make her pregnant with a son who will "avenge all the wrongs which will come to you from Philip"...

Then he told Olympia, who was intrigued to say the least, that she would have a dream, in which Amun will show himself to her and will tell her something like "I'm coming baby!"...And then he did some magic mumbo jumbo and Olympia did dream of Amun. And was much impressed...

And Olympia said: "You have spoken wisely, Prophet. I shall give you access to my room; and if I experience the mating and conceive, I shall greatly honour you as an infallible seer, and I shall receive you as though you were father of the child." Nectanebo was much pleased... 🙂

And he said: "Go inside and sit in your room. You shall see a serpent (Dragon) come slithering to you. Do not extinguish the light of the lamps, go and recline on your couch and cover your face. Once again you shall see the god whom you saw come to you in your dreams"...

Nectanebo tells Olympia about great sex she will have with Amun. She is all excited. So is he...

Anyway, he makes a Serpent (Dragon) from clay, magically breaths life into it, and the Serpent slithers into Olimpia's room, and it all happens as "prophesied": Olympia reclines covers her eyes, Serpent changes into Amun, and "mates" with Olympia...

Olympia is so pleased with what happens that she orders her servants to put Nectanebo into a room next to hers and to give him keys of her room. And from then on Amun spent every night between Olympia's legs...Until her belly started growing big...

Slightly freaked out Olympia asked "Prophet, what shall I do if Philip comes and finds me pregnant?" And he said: "Be not afraid, my lady, for the god Ammon is helping you in this matter; he will come to him in a dream, and inform him of what was destined to happen"...

And so Nectanebo makes a falcon, breaths life into it, and sends it to Philip, who, in his dream, seas a handsome god shag his wife and then proclaims that "he has just made her pregnant with a son who will avenge the death of his father..." Ouch...

And then, also in the same dream, Philip seals Olympia's womb with papyrus and then stamps the papyrus with his golden seal ring which had on it rays of sun, lion's head and lances...Philip, completely freaked out, asks his dream magic guy what the hell is going on. And he says:

Blah blah ...you will be raising a son of god, rejoice...He will be great, he will kick the crap out of everyone in the world...

But Philip was not convinced at all. As a matter of fact he hurried home, to kick the crap out of the bastard who just made him a bastard son...

Nectanebo, who was hiding in the palace heard Philip saying to Olympia: "You were not made pregnant by the gods, but, in fact, were smitten by someone else whom I shall send forth from this life with pitiless tortures if he falls into my hands". And he was concerned...

So during the feast celebrating the king's return (and the fact that his wife's was pregnant), Nectanebo transformed himself into the form of a serpent much bigger than the first. He passed through the palace breathing so fiercely that even the foundations quivered...

And those who saw him fled away, startled and shaken by fear. Olympia recognizing her bridegroom was stunned and raised her right hand from her lap and extended it. And he circled the room, and then came to Olympias' knees, and flicked out his double-forked tongue and kissed her.

Wow! Neat trick...Philip had been terribly frightened. When he regained his composure, he said: "My lady, as sure proof, I saw the god come to help you in your peril. But, as to who the god was, I did not know, for he showed us the form of Ammon"...

And Olympia said, "As he revealed himself to me at the time of mating with me, he is Ammon" And when the king heard this, he considered himself blessed for "I am destined" he said, "to be the father of a child of a god."

Few days later, Philip was in the garden. A bird came and laid an egg on his lap and flew away. The egg rolled from his lap to the ground and broke open. From it a little serpent came forth and circled it many times. Then it tried to go back into the egg but on the way in it died

An omen teller interpreted the dream like this: "You will have a son who, having traversed the whole world, shall subdue everyone by his strength and shall be subdued by no one; and while returning to his country, he shall die, having lived but for a short time..."

Sooooo...Another son of god? The authors of the Alexander romance thought not. Not a holy bastard. Just bastard...But to me the interesting bit is the Serpent (Dragon) bit of this story. Why was Serpent seen by everyone as the sure sign Amun Ra (Sun god) was in the house???

In Slavic mythology, Serpent (Dragon) is seen as the symbol of the sun. In folk poetry it is called "Sun's ray's brother". And he loves the ladies...As a matter of fact, Serbian Dragons seem to live for the ladies...Every one of them has a lady lover, usually a princess (queen)

They prefer earthly women to supernatural women, like Vilas (fairies). In a folk song recorded in Bosnia in the 19th century, two dragons, are fighting over the same girl. A Vila (Mountain Fairy, who calls them "her brothers") tells them that they should go check out the other Vilas instead of chasing mortal girls. only to be told to to piss off, as "no Mountain Fairy can come anywhere near to a mortal girl"...

Interestingly, in Serbian folklore, sons born out of the affairs  between Dragons and earthly women are always great heroes...Just like Alexander...Also Dragons can take both serpentine and human  shape...Just like Nectanebo...

The seal ring with which Philip "seals the deal with Amun" 🙂 is also very interesting. The sun is hottest in the middle of Leo. This is the time of the Dragon, who represents the destructive power of the late summer sun, which dries the skies and the land and creates drought...I talked more about Dragons in Serbian folklore in my post "Dragon who stole rain"