An
ala or
hala is a female mythological creature recorded in the
folkloreFolklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
of
BulgariansThe Bulgarians are a South Slavic nation and ethnic group native to Bulgaria and neighbouring regions. Emigration has resulted in immigrant communities in a number of other countries.-History and ethnogenesis:...
,
MacedoniansThe Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
, and
SerbsThe Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
. Ale are considered
demoncall - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s of bad weather whose main purpose is to lead
hail-producingHail is a form of solid precipitation. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is referred to as a hail stone. Hail stones on Earth consist mostly of water ice and measure between and in diameter, with the larger stones coming from severe thunderstorms...
thunderclouds in the direction of fields, vineyards, or orchards to destroy the crops, or loot and take them away. Extremely voracious, ale particularly like to eat children, though their gluttony is not limited to Earth. It is believed they sometimes try devouring the Sun or the Moon, causing
eclipseAn eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer...
s, and that it would mean the end of the world should they succeed. When people encounter an ala, their mental or physical health, or even life, are in peril; however, her favor can be gained by approaching her with respect and trust. Being in a good relationship with an ala is very beneficial, because she makes her favorites rich and saves their lives in times of trouble.
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
monsterA monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...
, a female
dragonA dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
, or a
ravenRaven is the common name given to several larger-bodied members of the genus Corvus—but in Europe and North America the Common Raven is normally implied...
. An ala may also
assume various human or animal shapesShapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
, and can even
possessDemonic possession is held by many belief systems to be the control of an individual by a malevolent supernatural being. Descriptions of demonic possessions often include erased memories or personalities, convulsions, “fits” and fainting as if one were dying...
a person's body. It is believed that the diversity of appearances described is due to the ala's being a synthesis of a Slavic demon of bad weather and a similar demon of the central
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
pre-Slavic population. In folk tales with a humanlike ala, her personality is similar to that of the Russian
Baba YagaBaba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
. Ale are said to live in the clouds, or in a lake, spring, hidden remote place, forest, inhospitable mountain, cave, or gigantic tree. While ale are usually hostile towards humans, they do have other powerful enemies that can defeat them, like dragons. In
ChristianizedThe historicity of several saints has often been treated skeptically by most academics, either because there is a paucity of historical evidence for them, or due to striking resemblances that they have to pre-Christian deities. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church officially decanonised some Christian...
tales, St. Elijah takes the dragons' role, but in some cases the saint and the dragons fight ale together. Eagles are also regarded as defenders against ale, chasing them away from fields and thus preventing them from bringing hail clouds overhead.
Origin
While some mythological beings are common to all
Slavic ethnic groupsThe Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
, ale seem to be exclusive to Bulgarian, Macedonian and Serb folklore. Even so, other Slavic groups also had demons of bad weather. Among
East SlavsThe East Slavs are Slavic peoples speaking East Slavic languages. Formerly the main population of the medieval state of Kievan Rus, by the seventeenth century they evolved into the Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian peoples.-Sources:...
, this witch was called
Baba YagaBaba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
, and was imagined as a woman of
gigantic statureThe mythology and legends of many different cultures include monsters of human appearance but prodigious size and strength. "Giant" is the English word commonly used for such beings, derived from one of the most famed examples: the gigantes of Greek mythology.In various Indo-European mythologies,...
with a big nose, iron teeth, and protruding chin; it was believed that she ate children, and her presence brought thunderstorms and cold weather. The term
baba is present in customs, beliefs, and toponyms of all Slavic groups, usually as a
personificationAnthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
of wind, darkness, and rain. This leads some scholars to believe there was a
proto-SlavicSlavic mythology is the mythological aspect of the polytheistic religion that was practised by the Slavs before Christianisation.The religion possesses many common traits with other religions descended from the Proto-Indo-European religion....
divinityDivinity and divine are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power or deity, or its attributes or manifestations in...
or demon called
Baba, associated with bad weather.
Traces of beliefs in that demon are preserved among
South SlavsThe South Slavs are the southern branch of the Slavic peoples and speak South Slavic languages. Geographically, the South Slavs are native to the Balkan peninsula, the southern Pannonian Plain and the eastern Alps...
in expressions for the bad weather common in early spring (
baba Marta,
babini jarci,
babine huke, etc.). Brought to the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
from the ancient homeland, these beliefs combined with those of the native populations, eventually developing into the personage of the ala. The pre-Slavic Balkan source of the ala is related to the
vlva, female demons of bad weather of the Vlachs of Serbia, who, like ale, led hail clouds over crops to ruin them, and uprooted trees. A Greek female demon
LamiaIn ancient Greek mythology, Lamia was a beautiful queen of Libya who became a child-eating daemon. Aristophanes claimed her name derived from the Greek word for gullet , referring to her habit of devouring children....
might also have contributed in the development of the ala. Just like ale, she eats children, and is called gluttonous. In southern Serbia and Macedonia,
lamnja, a word derived from
lamia, is also a
synonymSynonyms are different words with almost identical or similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy. The word comes from Ancient Greek syn and onoma . The words car and automobile are synonyms...
for
ala. The Bulgarian
lamya has remained a creature distinct from the ala, but shares many similarities with her. The numerous variations in form of ale, ranging from the animal and half-animal to the humanlike concepts, tell us that beliefs in these demons were not uniform.
Etymology
The demon’s name in the standard
SerbianSerbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
,
ala, comes from dialects which lost the velar fricative, while
hala is recorded in a Serbian dialect which has retained this sound and in Bulgarian. For this reason, it is believed that the original name had an initial h-sound, a fact that has led Serbian scholar Ljubinko Radenković to reject the etymology given by several dictionaries, including that of the
Serbian Academy of Sciences and ArtsThe Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
, by which the demon’s name comes from the
TurkishTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
word ‘ala’ (
snake) as that word lacks the h-sound. The name may instead stem from the
GreekGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
word for hail, χάλαζα . This etymology is proposed by Bulgarian scholar Ivanichka Georgieva, and supported by Bulgarian scholar Rachko Popov and Serbian scholars Slobodan Zečević, and Sreten Petrović. According to Serbian scholar Marta Bjeletić,
ala and
hala stem from the noun *
xala in Proto-South-Slavic, the dialect of
Proto-SlavicProto-Slavic is the proto-language from which Slavic languages later emerged. It was spoken before the seventh century AD. As with most other proto-languages, no attested writings have been found; the language has been reconstructed by applying the comparative method to all the attested Slavic...
from which
South Slavic languagesThe South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
emerged (
x in
xala represents the
voiceless velar fricativeThe voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The sound was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English....
). That noun was derived from the Proto-Slavic
rootThe root word is the primary lexical unit of a word, and of a word family , which carries the most significant aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents....
*
xal-, denoting the fury of the elements.
Appearance
Dragon or Serpent like
demoncall - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
connected with the wind, and
thunderstormA thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
and
hailHail is a form of solid precipitation. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is referred to as a hail stone. Hail stones on Earth consist mostly of water ice and measure between and in diameter, with the larger stones coming from severe thunderstorms...
clouds. It was believed in the
Gruža regionThe Gruža is a region in central Serbia. This region, containing a village of the same name, is poetically referred to as the Heart of Šumadija.-Geography:...
of central
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
that the ala is invisible, but that she can be heard — her powerful hissing resonated in front of the dark hail clouds.
In
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
, farmers saw a horrible ala with huge wings and sword-like thick tail in the contours of a dark cloud. When an ala–cloud overtook the village, villagers peered into the sky hoping to see an
imperial eagleThe Eastern Imperial Eagle is a large species of bird of prey that breeds from southeastern Europe to central Asia. Most populations are migratory and winter in northeastern Africa, and southern and eastern Asia. The Spanish Imperial Eagle, found in Spain and Portugal, was formerly lumped with...
emerging there. They believed that the mighty bird with a cross on its back could banish the ala–cloud from the fields. In eastern Bulgaria, ala appeared not in clouds, but in gales and whirlwinds. In other regions of Bulgaria, the ala was seen either as a "bull with huge horns, a black cloud, dark fog or a snake-like monster with six wings and twelve tails". The ala is thought to inhabit remote mountain areas or caves, in which she keeps bad weather. In Bulgarian tradition, thunderstorms and hail clouds were interpreted as a battle between the good dragon or eagle and the evil ala.
Serbs in
KosovoKosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
believed that the ala lowers her tail to the ground and hides her head in the clouds. Anyone who saw her head became instantly insane. In a high relief carved above a window of the
Visoki Dečani monasteryVisoki Dečani is a major Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located in Kosovo, south of the town of Peć. The monastic katholikon is the largest medieval church in the Balkans containing the most extensive preserved fresco decoration.- History :The monastery was established in a chestnut grove...
’s church, an eagle clutches a snakelike ala while an eaglet looks on. According to a description from eastern Serbia, the ala is a very large creature with a snake’s body and a horse’s head. A very common opinion is that the ala is the sister of the
dragonA dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
, and looks more or less like him. In a
spellMagic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
from eastern Serbia, the ala is described as a three-headed snake:
У једна уста носи виле и ветрови,
друга уста – издат и зле болести,
трећа уста – учинци, растурци.
|
- In one mouth she bears fairies
A fairy is a type of mythical being or legendary creature, a form of spirit, often described as metaphysical, supernatural or preternatural.Fairies resemble various beings of other mythologies, though even folklore that uses the term...
and winds,
- the second mouth – infirmity and bad diseases,
- the third mouth – spells, curse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
s. |
|
By a description recorded in the
BoljevacBoljevac is a town and municipality located in the Zaječar District of Serbia. According to 2011 census, the population of the town is 3,332, while population of the municipality is 12,865....
region, the ala is a black and horrible creature in the form of wind. Similarly, in the
HomoljeHomolje is a region in east Serbia south of the Danube river. It is centered around the town of Žagubica, with smaller parts belonging to municipalities of Kučevo, Majdanpek and Petrovac...
region of eastern Serbia, the people imagine the ala as a black wind moving over the land. Wherever she goes, a
whirlwindA dust devil is a strong, well-formed, and relatively long-lived whirlwind, ranging from small to large . The primary vertical motion is upward...
blows, turning like a drill, and those who get exposed to the whirlwind go mad. In Bulgaria too, the ala is a violent wind that sweeps up everything in its way and brings havoc:
Излезнаха до три люти хали,
Девет години що се духали.
|
- Three furious ale had come out,
- For nine years they would be blowing.
|
|
A belief from the
LeskovacLeskovac is a city and municipality in southern Serbia. It is the administrative center of the Jablanica District of Serbia...
region states the ala is a monster with an enormous mouth who holds in her hand a big wooden spoon, with which she grabs and devours everything that gets in her way. One story has it that a man kept such an ala in his barn; she drank thirty liters of milk every day. Another warns that ale in the form of twelve ravens used to take the crops from vineyards.
In eastern Serbia it was believed that ale who interact with people can
metamorphoseShapeshifting is a common theme in mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. It is also found in epic poems, science fiction literature, fantasy literature, children's literature, Shakespearean comedy, ballet, film, television, comics, and video games...
into humans or animals, after which their true selves can be seen only by so-called
šestaci – men with six fingers on both hands and six toes on both feet – though human-looking ale cause houses to shake when they enter. By a belief recorded in the Homolje region, ale that charge to the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
also display shapeshifting abilities: they repeatedly shift from their basic shape of two-headed snakes to six-fingered men who hold iron pitchforks, black young bulls, big boars, or black wolves, and back.
Effect on humans
Ale primarily destroy crops in fields, vineyards, and orchards by leading
hailHail is a form of solid precipitation. It consists of balls or irregular lumps of ice, each of which is referred to as a hail stone. Hail stones on Earth consist mostly of water ice and measure between and in diameter, with the larger stones coming from severe thunderstorms...
storm cloudsA thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
overhead, usually during the first half of the summer when grain crops ripen. Ale are also believed to “drink the crops”, or seize the crops of a village and transport them to another place in their huge ears, thereby making some villages poor, and others rich. This was held as the reason why the
AleksandrovacAleksandrovac is a town and municipality located in the Rasina District of Serbia. In 2002, the population of the town was 6,265, while population of the municipality was 26,534.-Sport:...
region in central Serbia was so fruitful: it was where ale transported their loot. The people of
Kopaonik mountainKopaonik ; is one of the larger mountain ranges of Serbia. It is located in the central part of Serbia, while a small portion extendeds to North Kosovo. Its highest point, Pančić's Peak, is above sea level....
believed the local ala defended the crops of the area where she lived from other ale. If hail destroyed the crops, it was thought that an ala from another area had defeated the local ala and “drunk the crops”. Ale can also spread themselves over fields and thwart the ripening of the crops, or worse, consume the field’s fertility, and drink the milk from sheep, especially when it thunders. Ale also possess great strength; when a storm uprooted trees, the people believed that an ala had done it.
At the sight of hail and thunderstorm clouds, i.e. the ala that leads them, people did not just sit and wait – they resorted to
magicMagic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
. In the
Pomoravlje regionPomoravlje , is a general term which in its widest sense marks valleys of any of three Morava rivers in Serbia: West Morava , Južna Morava and Great Morava . In the narrow sense, term is applied only to the Greater Pomoravlje...
, this magic was assisted by
ala’s herbs, picked in
leveeA levee, levée, dike , embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels...
s and the places on a field where a plow turns around during plowing. These locations were considered unclean because ale visited them. In folk spells of eastern Serbia, a particular ala could be addressed by a female personal name:
Smiljana, Kalina, Magdalena, Dobrica, Dragija, Zagorka, etc. An expression for addressing an ala –
Maate paletinke – is of uncertain meaning. One of the spells that was used upon sighting hail clouds, and which explicitly mentioned an ala, was shouted in the direction of the clouds:
Alo, ne ovamo, putuj na Tatar planinu! |
- Ala, not hither, travel to the Tatar Mountain!
|
|
Another spell was spoken by a
vračara, a woman versed in magic, while she performed a suitable ritual:
Не, ало, овамо,
овамо је грђа ала гологлава.
У планину, облаче,
где петао не пева,
где пас не лаје,
где краве не ричу,
где овце не блеје,
где се слава не слави.
|
- Not hither, ala,
- a mightier, bareheaded ala is here.
- Off into the mountain, cloud,
- where no rooster crows,
- where no dog barks,
- where no cows bellow,
- where no sheep bleat,
- where Slava
The Slava , also called Krsna Slava and Krsno ime , is the Serbian Orthodox tradition of the ritual celebration and veneration of a family's own patron saint. The family celebrates the Slava annually on the patron saint's feast day...
is not celebrated. |
|
As several other supernatural entities were also held responsible for bringing hail and torrential rains, when the entity is not explicitly named, it is often impossible to conclude to which the magical measures apply. There was, for example, a custom used when the approach of a thunderstorm was perceived: to bring a table in front of the house, and to put bread, salt, a knife with a black sheath, and an axe with its edge directed skywards on the table. By another custom, a
fireplace trivetA trivet is an object placed between a serving dish or bowl, and a dining table, usually to protect the table from heat damage.Trivet also refers to a tripod used to elevate pots from the coals of an open fire...
with its legs directed skywards, knives, forks, and the stub of the Slava candle were put on the table.
Another characteristic attributed to the ala is extreme voracity; in the Leskovac region, she was imagined as a monster with a huge mouth and a wooden spoon in her hand, with which she grabbed and devoured whatever came her way. According to a widely spread tradition, ale used to seize children and devour them in her dwelling, which was full of children’s bones and spilt blood. Less often, they attacked and ate adults; they were able to find a hidden human by smell.
People in eastern and southern Serbia believed that ale, in their voracity, attacked the
SunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
and the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
. They gradually ate more and more of those celestial bodies, thereby causing an
eclipseAn eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object is temporarily obscured, either by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer...
. During an eclipse, the Sun turned red because it was covered with its own blood as a result of the ale’s bites; when it shined brightly again, that meant it had defeated the ale. The spots on the Moon were seen as scars from the ale’s bites. While ale devoured the Sun or the Moon, many elderly people became
depressedDepression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...
and even wept in fear. If ale succeeded in devouring the Sun, the world would end. To prevent that, men shot their guns toward the eclipse or rang bells, and women cast spells incessantly. There was a notion in the Homolje region that, if ale succeeded in devouring the Moon, the Sun would die from sorrow, and darkness would overwhelm the world.
Ale were believed to be able to make men insane; in eastern Serbia there is a special term for such a man:
alosan. When people encountered an ala on a road or field, they could get dangerous diseases from her. Ale are also responsible for dogs’
rabiesRabies is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis in warm-blooded animals. It is zoonotic , most commonly by a bite from an infected animal. For a human, rabies is almost invariably fatal if post-exposure prophylaxis is not administered prior to the onset of severe symptoms...
, although indirectly: a
skylarkThe Skylark is a small passerine bird species. This lark breeds across most of Europe and Asia and in the mountains of north Africa. It is mainly resident in the west of its range, but eastern populations are more migratory, moving further south in winter. Even in the milder west of its range,...
that reaches the clouds and encounters an ala there goes mad (
alosan), plunges to the ground, and so kills itself; a dog that finds and eats the bird goes mad too.
Traversing a crossroads at night was considered dangerous because it was the place and time of the ala’s supper; the unfortunate person who stepped on an “ala’s table” could become blind, deaf, or lame. Ale gather at night on the eves of greater
holidaysA religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar...
, divert men from their ways into
gulliesA gully is a landform created by running water, eroding sharply into soil, typically on a hillside. Gullies resemble large ditches or small valleys, but are metres to tens of metres in depth and width...
, and torture them there by riding them like horses.
Ala can “sneak” into humans, gaining a human form while retaining their own properties. A tradition has it that an ala sneaked into
St. SimeonStefan Nemanja was the Grand Prince of the Grand Principality of Serbia from 1166 to 1196, a heir of the Vukanović dynasty that marked the beginning of a greater Serbian realm .He is remembered for his contributions to Serbian culture and...
, which made him voracious, but St. Sava took her out of him. In a tale recorded in eastern Serbia and Bulgaria, a farmer killed an ala who possessed a skinny man living in a distant village, because the ala destroyed his vineyard. In another story, an ala gets into a deceased princess and devours the soldiers on watch.
A human going into an ala’s house, which is frequently deep in a forest, but may also be in the clouds, in a lake, spring, cave, gigantic tree, or other hidden remote place, or on an inhospitable mountain, can have varied consequences. If he approaches the ala with an appeal, and does not mention the differences between her and humans, he will be rewarded. Otherwise, he will be cruelly punished. According to one story, a stepdaughter, driven away from home by her stepmother, comes to an ala’s house; addresses her with the word
mother; picks lice from the ala’s hair full of worms; and feeds the ala’s “livestock” of owls, wolves, badgers, and other wild animals; behaving and talking as if these things are quite normal to her, and is rewarded by the ala with a chest filled with gold. When the stepmother’s daughter comes to the ala’s house, she does the opposite, and the ala punishes her and her mother by sending them a chest of snakes, which blind them. In another example, when a prince asks an ala for her daughter’s hand, she saves him from other ale, and helps him get married. But when a girl to whom an ala is the
godmotherIn fairy tales, a donor is a character that tests the hero and provides magical assistances to the hero when he succeeds.The fairy godmother is a well-known form of this character...
visits the ala with her mother, the ala eats them both because the mother talked about the strange things in her house.
That even a dead ala is bad is seen in the legend explaining the origin of the Golubatz fly (
Simulium colombaschense), a species of bloodsucking
black flyA black fly is any member of the family Simuliidae of the Culicomorpha infraorder. They are related to the Ceratopogonidae, Chironomidae, and Thaumaleidae. There are over 1,800 known species of black flies . Most species belong to the immense genus Simulium...
that can be lethal to livestock. The legend, recorded in the
Požarevac DistrictPožarevac is a city and municipality in eastern Serbia. It is the administrative center of the Braničevo District of Serbia...
in the 19th century by
Vuk KaradžićVuk Stefanović Karadžić was a Serbian philolog and linguist, the major reformer of the Serbian language, and deserves, perhaps, for his collections of songs, fairy tales, and riddles to be called the father of the study of Serbian folklore. He was the author of the first Serbian dictionary...
, tells how a Serbian man, after a chase, caught and wounded an ala, but she broke away and fled into a cave near
GolubacGolubac is a village and municipality in north-eastern Serbia, on the right side of the Danube river. It is bordered by Romania to the east, Veliko Gradište to the west and Kučevo to the south...
(a town in the district), where she died of the wounds. Ever since, her body has bred the Golubatz flies, and in late spring, they fly out of the cave in a big swarm, spreading as far as
ŠumadijaŠumadija is a geographical region in Serbia. The area is heavily covered with forests, hence the name...
. People walled up the cave’s opening once, but when the time came for the flies to swarm, the wall shattered.
Aloviti men
In
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
, men believed to possess properties of an ala were called
aloviti (ala-like) men, and they were given several explanations. An ala may have sneaked into them; these were recognized by their voracity, because the ala, in order to satisfy her excessive hunger, drove them to eat incessantly. They may also have survived an ala blowing on them – an ala’s breath is usually lethal to humans. These people would then become exceptionally strong. Alternatively, they could be the offspring of an ala and a woman, or could have been born covered with the
caulA caul is a thin, filmy membrane, the amnion, that can cover a newborn's head and face immediately after birth.-Obstetrics:A child "born with the caul" has a portion of the amniotic sac or membrane remaining on the head. There are two types of cauls. The most common caul is adhered to the head...
. It was believed that
aloviti men could not be killed with a gun, unless gold or silver bullets were used.
Like ale,
aloviti men led hail-producing and thunderstorm clouds: when the skies darkened, such a man would fall into a
tranceTrance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
, and his spirit would fly out of his body toward the clouds as if his spirit were an ala herself. There was, however, a significant difference – he never led the clouds over the fields of his own village; the damage was done to the neighboring villages. In this respect,
aloviti men are equivalent to
zduhaćA zduhać , vetrovnjak, zmajevit, oblačar, or gradobranitelj was, in Serbian tradition, a man with the special ability to protect his estate, village, or region against destructive weather conditions, such as storms, hail, or torrential rains...
i. Besides leading clouds away, an
aloviti man could also fight against ale to protect his village. Children, too, could be
aloviti, and they fought ale using plough beams. In these fights they were helped by the
Aesculapian snakeThe Aesculapian Snake is a nonvenomous snake native to Europe.-Description:They hatch at around 30 cm and average at around 110 cm but can grow up to 200 cm . They are dark, long, slender, and shiny...
(
smuk in Serbian), and for this reason people would not hurt these snakes.
There is a story about an
aloviti man, who is described as unusually tall, thin, bony-faced, and with a long beard and moustache. When the weather was nice, he worked and behaved like the other people in his village, but as soon as the dark clouds covered the sky, he used to close himself in his house, put blinds on the windows, and remain alone and in a trance as long as the bad weather and thunder lasted.
Historical persons believed to be
aloviti men are
Stefan NemanjaStefan Nemanja was the Grand Prince of the Grand Principality of Serbia from 1166 to 1196, a heir of the Vukanović dynasty that marked the beginning of a greater Serbian realm .He is remembered for his contributions to Serbian culture and...
, and
Stefan DečanskiStephen Uroš III of Dečani was King of Serbia from January 6, 1322 to 8 September 1331. He defeated and killed several of his family members who wanted to take the throne from him. He took his epithet Dečanski from the great monastery he built at Dečani.-Early:He was the son of King Stefan Uroš II...
.
Adversaries
Ale have several adversaries, including
dragonA dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
s,
zmajeviti (dragon-like) men, eagles, St. Elijah, and St. Sava. The principal enemy of the ala is the dragon; he is able to defeat her and eliminate her harmful effects. Dragons are thus seen as guardians of the fields and harvest, and as protectors against bad weather. When an ala threatens by bringing hail clouds, a dragon comes out to fight with her and drive her away. His main weapon is lightning; thunder represents a fight between ale and dragons (during which ale hide in tall trees). An instance of a more abundant crop at a particular point is explained in the Pčinja region as a result of a dragon having struck an ala with lightning just over that place, making her drop the looted grains she had been carrying in her huge ears. If an ala finds a dragon in a hollow tree, however, she can destroy him by burning the tree.
Ale can be defeated by
zmajeviti men, who have a human mother, but a dragon father. They look like ordinary people except for little wings beneath their armpits; such men are always born at night after a twelve-month
termPregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
. Much like a
zduhaćA zduhać , vetrovnjak, zmajevit, oblačar, or gradobranitelj was, in Serbian tradition, a man with the special ability to protect his estate, village, or region against destructive weather conditions, such as storms, hail, or torrential rains...
, a
zmajeviti man lives like everybody else when the weather is nice, but when an ala leads threatening clouds into sight, he falls into a
tranceTrance denotes a variety of processes, ecstasy, techniques, modalities and states of mind, awareness and consciousness. Trance states may occur involuntarily and unbidden.The term trance may be associated with meditation, magic, flow, and prayer...
and his spirit comes out of his body and flies up to the clouds to fight with the ala, just like a dragon would do. A story from
BanatThe Banat is a geographical and historical region in Central Europe currently divided between three countries: the eastern part lies in western Romania , the western part in northeastern Serbia , and a small...
, which was held as true until the 1950s, says that before
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, an exhausted ala in the form of a giant snake fell from the clouds onto a road. The explanation of the event was that the ala was defeated in her fight with a
zmajeviti man; people gave her milk to help her recover.
In a Christianized version, the duel involves the
ChristianChristianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
St. Elijah and the ala, but there is a belief that the saint and the dragons in fact cooperate: as soon as St. Elijah spots an ala, he summons the dragons, either takes them aboard his chariot or harnesses them to it, and they jointly shoot the ala with lightning. Arrow-shaped stones, like belemnites or
stone-age arrowheadsIn archaeological terms, a projectile point is an object that was hafted to a projectile, such as a spear, dart, or arrow, or perhaps used as a knife....
, are regarded as materialized lightning bolts imbued with a beneficial magical power, and finding one is a good omen.
In a more Christianized version, St. Elijah shoots lightning at the
devilThe Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
s who lead the hail clouds; the devils in this case are obviously ale. As shown by these examples, beliefs with various degrees of
ChristianizationThe historicity of several saints has often been treated skeptically by most academics, either because there is a paucity of historical evidence for them, or due to striking resemblances that they have to pre-Christian deities. In 1969 the Roman Catholic Church officially decanonised some Christian...
, from none to almost complete, can exist side by side.
An eagle’s appearance in the sky when thunderclouds threatened was greeted with joy and hope by people who trusted in their power to defeat an ala; after defeating the ala, the eagle led the clouds away from the fields. An explanation for this, recorded in eastern Serbia, is that the eagles which nest in the vicinity of a village want thunderstorms and hail as far as possible from their nestlings, so coincidentally protect the village’s fields as well. The role of eagles, however, was controversial, because in the same region there was a belief that an eagle flying in front of thunderstorm clouds was a manifestation of an ala, leading the clouds toward the crops, rather than driving them away.
Connection with Baba Yaga
Comparing
folk talesFolklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, there are similarities between the ala and the
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n
Baba YagaBaba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
. The aforementioned motif of a stepdaughter coming to an ala’s house in a forest is recorded among
RussiansThe Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
too – there a stepdaughter comes to Baba Yaga’s house and feeds her “livestock”. Similar are also the motifs of an ala (by Serbs) and Baba Yaga (by Russians) becoming
godmothersIn fairy tales, a donor is a character that tests the hero and provides magical assistances to the hero when he succeeds.The fairy godmother is a well-known form of this character...
to children whom they later eat because the children discover their secret. In the Serbian example, the mother of an ala’s godchild speaks with the ala, and in the Russian, the godchild speaks with Baba Yaga.
-
- (...) Yesterday, the woman went to the ala’s house with her child, the ala’s godchild. Upon entering the first room, she saw a poker and a broom fighting; in the second room, she saw human legs; in the fourth – human flesh; in the fifth – blood; in the sixth – she saw that the ala had taken off her head and was delousing it, while wearing a horse’s head in its place. After that, the ala brought lunch and said to the woman, “Eat, kuma.” “How can I eat after I saw a poker and a broom fighting in the first room?” “Eat, kuma, eat. Those are my maids: they fight about which one should take the broom and sweep.” “How can I eat after I saw human arms and legs in the second and third rooms?” And the ala told her, “Eat, kuma, eat. That is my food.” “How can I eat, kuma, after I saw the sixth room full of blood?” “Eat, kuma, eat. That is the wine that I drink.” “How can I eat after I saw that you had taken your head off and were delousing it, having fixed a horse’s head on yourself?” The ala, after hearing that, ate both the woman and her child.
-
- (...) On her name day
A name day is a tradition in many countries in Europe and Latin America that consists of celebrating the day of the year associated with one's given name....
, the girl goes to her godmother’s house with cakes to treat her. She comes to the gate – the gate is closed with a human leg; she goes into the yard – there a barrel full of blood; she goes up the stairs – there dead children; the porch is closed with an arm; on the floor – arms, legs; the door is closed with a finger. Baba Yaga comes to meet her at the door and asks her, “Have you seen anything, my dear, on your way to my house?” “I saw,” the girl answers, “the gate closed with a leg.” “That is my iron latchA latch is a type of mechanical fastener that is used to join two objects or surfaces together while allowing for the regular or eventual separation of the objects or surfaces....
.” “I saw a barrel in the yard full of blood.” “That is my wine, my darling.” “I saw children lying on the stairs.” “Those are my pigs.” “The porch is closed with an arm.” “That is my latch, my golden one.” “I saw in the house a hairy head.” “That is my broom, my curly one,” said Baba Yaga, then got angry with her prying goddaughter and ate her.
The two examples witness the
chthonicChthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
nature of these mythological creatures: a hero can enter the chthonic space and discover the secret of that world, but he is not allowed to relate that secret to other humans. Both the ala and Baba Yaga can be traced back to an older concept of a female demonic divinity: the snakelike mistress of the
underworldThe Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
.