Еленът в българския фолклор и вярвания
The Deer in Bulgarian Folklore and Beliefs

Summary/Abstract: The article dwells on several aspects of the deer-motif mostly in the songs at Christmas and St. Lazarus’ Day, and in heroic epic songs. Reference is made of a number of analogous subject-matters, which are well-known far to the East of the Balkan Range and chiefly among peoples genetically related to the Bulgarian people. Thracian and ancient data are not here considered as they present a separate theme. The genres and the peculiar character of the development in the subject-matter reveal that the deer-motif is deeply rooted in antiquity. In Bulgarian folklore the deer retained single features of a totemic animal, a symbol of the sun and fertility. The ideas about the supernatural power of the deer were later mixed with the canonical Christian images of the saints. The St. Lazarus’ Day songs are of a distinctly marked magical character as an appeal to the totemic animal with the purpose of bringing fertility and childbirth. The ancient beliefs in the healing effect of the milk and horns of the hind are widely spread. Another aspect of the motif presents a remnant of the belief in the deer, offered in sacrifice as a totemic animal of the clan in order that the ties of blood be affirmed and fertility and success in hunting be obtained. The author is of the opinion that the worship of the deer could hardly be given full account of by the ancient Greek, Thracian and Slavic notions only. It must also be related to the notions of the proto-Bulgarians. The idea of a patron animal of the clan, the tribe, the people and nature is common to many Indo-European peoples but the concrete iconography and semantics link it to the proto-Bulgarians. Their ancient beliefs in patron spirits were similar to the local Greek and Thracian specific features. The multifarious and complex phenomenon that the Bulgarian people’s spiritual culture presents has been formed as a result of the symbiosis of Greek, Thracian, Slavic and proto-Bulgarian elements.

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