The Mystical cluster - The Samodiva
Samodiva, samovila, vila, rusalia, yuda, these are all nouns that are used to describe a figure in Bulgarian and Southern Slavic folklore that embodies the unknown, the mystical, the unexplained forces of nature. According to Todorova (2019), all these words have converged in meaning. Even though some folktales use the name samodiva, others samovila or yuda, they are referring to the same symbol. This system of images and forces is one of the most prominent legacies of the pagan worldviews. Of course, it has been influenced by Christianity, but in no way eradicated and it is one of the symbols that has not been adapted to fit the biblical narrative (Iliev, 2000). Samodivas kept existing in various forms in oral history and later in written folklore. Kirova (2008), Georgieva (1983), and Angelova-Damianova (2003) all agree on the general symbolic meaning of the existence of these characters. They live in far, remote places, usually mountains, mostly around rivers and water sources. Their community is only of women of various ages. They wear white and they dance together, they eat fruits and their “horse” is a “sur elen”, a mythical deer that holds the sun between its horns. They live in virgin and remote places, where humans don’t go. They are the guardians of water and generally of nature. Georgieva talks about how they are the guardians of water springs and fountains. There are multiple landmarks that are named after them - i.e. there are multiple lakes named Samodiva’s lake, Samodiva’s meadow, etc. Many of those names stand until today.
This is where the agreement in the literature ends. There are various sources (Georgieva has collected many), that describe them as creatures that are against humans, that are trying to harm them, whereas other sources describe them as forest fairies that bless people with herbs and their relation to nature is not that devastating to humankind. Either way, they are creatures that exist separately from humans, even though they interact with them occasionally. They live their lives by their own principles and any collisions with humans leave them unchanged. As Georgieva (1983) says, killing the samodiva is the only way to defeat her, but she wouldn’t betray her community’s principles. When they are perceived as good creatures, they still hold the very strong values of sisterhood and unity with nature, but they help humans by curing them of chronic illnesses, etc. The way their interactions are perceived and evaluated by humans is subjective, but the list of events and actions that are associated with them remains. They are the face of nature that seems to embody the unknown, the untouched, the pristine, the forces that humans can’t seem to be able to tame. For example, in the next section, you will see the summary of a story where a dead samodiva’s eyes become lakes and her corpse becomes a tree. Another one is the guardian of the twelve springs and a third one explains the existence of whirlwinds. And so, they are at the very least removed, or in a lot of cases, demonized, as they are used to describe unfathomable events, but mostly the unpleasant ones. This shows a rejection of two entities - self-sufficient women and the close connection and relation to nature as a bigger and unpredictable force, here the binary is both male/female and culture/nature.
This collision of the “wild” woman and nature tells us a lot about how the Bulgarian patriarchal society perceives both of them. Let’s look at one prominent example, versions of which appear in various folklore collections. The main characters are Krali Marko and a samodiva. For context, Krali Marko is a character that appears throughout various folklore pieces and is used as a symbol of masculinity, strength, heroism, etc. His character and what he stands for are immediately recognized.
| Крали Марко и Самодива Събрали се триста момци, триста момци в Шар планина да си мятат тежък камък. Никой камък не подигна нито можа да го хвърли! Ей го иде Крали Марко, той си дигна тежък камък и го дигна и го метна от планина до Пирина! Камък падна у градина, у градина самодивска, та поломи дребно цвете, дребно цвете - ран босилек. Щом го видя Самодива натъжи се, разсърди се, че си грабна люти стрели, дигна лък от жилав корен със тетива тънка коса, тънка коса самодивска, че си яхна сури елен, че си метна бяла нога у зенгии до две змии. Съгледа си Крали Марка на рътлина под планина дето слиза с бърза коня, с коня слиза, песен пее. - Стой почакай, Крали Марко, да ти хвърля първа стрела! Трепна Марко и застана, щит издигна нанагоре, прозвънтя ми люта стрела, юнак Марка не улучи. Разсърди се Самодива, набърчи си бяло чело събраха се облаците на поляна самодивска... - Стой почакай, Крали Марко, да ти хвърля втора стрела. Трепна Марко и застана, щит издигна нанагоре, прозвънтя ми люта стрела, заплете се коню в грива. Разгневи се Самодива, от очи й искри хвъркат - светна, тресна тъмен облак над поляна самодивска. - Стой почакай, Крали Марко, да ти хвърля трета стрела! Спря се Марко и застана, щит издигна на високо, прозвънтя ми люта стрела, щит удари по средата, отхвръкна ми като сламка. Разфуча се Самодива, лък захвърли, па заплака - зароси ми дребен дъждец, та измокри Крали Марка! А Марко й проговаря: - Не сърди се, Самодиво, не гневи се, посестримо! Ех, жена си - ще поплачеш, ще поплачеш, ще ти мине. | Krali Marko and Samodiva Three hundred men gathered Three hundred men in Shar mountain To throw a heavy rock No one could lift the rock Or to throw it Here comes Krali Marko He lifted the heavy rock And he lifted it and threw it From the mountain to Pirin mountain The rock landed in a garden In a samodiva’s garden And it killed a tiny flower A tiny flower - early basil When Samodiva saw him She got sad, she got upset She grabbed her bitter arrows Lifted her bow from a tough root With a bowstring - thin hair Thin hair of a samodiva She got on her deer She threw her white legs In the stirrups next to two snakes She caught sight of Krali Marko In the ridge of the mountain Coming down with his fast horse Coming down with the fast horse, singing a song -Wait, Krali Marko, wait For me to shoot my first arrow Marko flinched and stood still He raised his shield up The bitter arrow rang The hero Marko it did not hit The samodiva got upset She wrinkled her white forehead The clouds came To the samodiva meadow -Wait, Krali Marko, Wait For me to shoot my second arrow Marko flinched and stood still He raised his shield up The bitter arrow rang It got tangled in the horse’s mane Samodiva got enraged Her eyes are throwing sparks A dark cloud lit up, thundered Over the samodiva meadow - Wait, Krali Marko, wait For me to shoot my third arrow Marko stopped and stood still Rised his his shield hup The bitter arrow rang Hit the shield in the middle Flew away like a straw Samodiva threw a tantrum Threw the bow away, and started crying A tiny rain started sprinkling And it drenched Krali marko! But marko said to her: -Don’t get upset, Samodiva Don’t get mad, my sister Ah, you are a woman - you will cry for a bit You will cry for a bit, and you will be fine. |
The plot of this poem helps us identify various structures when it comes to the man/woman binary together with the nature/culture binary. The table below outlines the specific opposing features that Krali Marko and Samodiva embody.
| Krali Marko | Samodiva |
| Man < | >Woman |
| Strong < | >Not strong enough |
| Calm and collected< | >“Unreasonably angry and upset” |
| Culture/ Human Progress < | > Nature |
The only element that is missing from this specific piece of folklore is the element of sisterhood, as opposed to a male-dominated society, where the woman only exists in relation to her family. The following table outlines the summaries of 11 more pieces of folklore that include samodivas.
| No. | Title | Translated Title | Summary | Villain or friend? | Source |
| 1 | Иван Попов и Самовила | Ivan Popov and Samovila | Man encounters samovila, samovila refuses to leave (it sounds like shes just chatting with him). He threatens to torture her. Then, he marries her and locks one of her wings in. He lives with her for three years, she gives birth to a child. Then she tell him to give her her wing back so she can go dance. They are reluctant because they are scared that she will escape. Then, she actually escapes and everyone is angry. | Villain | Source |
| 2 | Димо Кавалджия и Гюргя самодива | Dimo the caval player and Gyurgya Samovila | Gyurgya captures Dimo and takes him to the mountain. He shows exceptional musical talent and takes Guyrgya as a wife back to the village. She stays with him for three years and gives him a child. It was time to baptize the child and she tricked him and flew away and never came back. | Villain | Source |
| 3 | Самодива погубва овчар | Samodiva kills a shepherd | The shepherd has met a mysterious woman in the mountains and he can’t figure out where she is from and whose daughter she is because she wouldn’t tell him. Then, his mother gives him a special blend of flowers and herbs that she would accept if she is a woman and would run away from if a samodiva. Then, the samodiva realizes the trick that he is trying to play on him and she kills him | Villain | Source |
| 4 | Вида самовила заключила дванадесет извора | Vida Samovila locked up twelve springs | There was a water shortage in the village and someone told Krali Marko that Vida locked up all the springs. He goes there and he kills her. Justice restored (Graphic descriptions of how he killed her exactly). | Villain | Source |
| 5 | Драгана и самодиви | Dragana and samodivas | Dragana was dancing in her village and then a whirlwind came and lifted her up. Then, she wanted her brother to take her to a samodiva lake. There, the samodivas took her away as one of theirs. | Villain | Source |
| 6 | Дете и три самодиви | A child and three samodivas | A mother forgets her child in the fields, then she finds three samodivas over it, chanting that they will take it away to their lands to show it what is real spring, what is real fruitfulness. They won’t take it away now, but when it grows up. | Villain | Source |
| 7 | Трима овчари и самодива | Three shepherds and samodiva | Three shepherds want to take their herds to three separate mountains. A samodiva meets all of them to ask for a “meadow tax” and they trick her and the youngest brother kills her | Villain | Source |
| 8 | Ранен юнак и самодива | Wounded hero and a samodiva | A guy is wounded at war and he is laying in the mountains. A mean eagle is threatening to eat him. Then, he calls a samodiva and she comes and heals him with herbs. | Friend | Source |
| 9 | Юнак улавя самодива | A hero catches a samodiva | A “hero” is playing around in a samodiva’s territory. She tries to shoot him with her bow and arrow and she can’t. After the third attempt, he catches her. | Villain | Source |
| 10 | Марийка и самодиви | Mariika and samodivas | Mariika falls asleep at the field. As she wakes up, she discovers that three samodivas are around her. They tell her, “Come with us to our lands. It’s really beautiful, we don’t go to the fields, we don’t have to work. We just dance together and sing and dance”. It is unclear whether she decided to go with them. | Unclear | Source |
| 11 | Овчар убива самодива | Shepherd kills a samodiva | A shepherd leaves his herd on samodiva territory and the samodiva takes his sheep. He goes and kills her with an arrow between her eyes. From her eyes, two lakes formed. From her “thin” body grew a tree. From her blond hair, a fine clover grass grew. The shepherd goes with his herd to that place now. The song praises him for providing this to the people. | Villain | Source |
| 12 | Крали Марко и самодива | Krali Marko and samodiva | (the translated one above). Krali Marko plays with a rock and that rock kills a plant in the samodiva’s garden. Samodiva gets angry and tries to kill him. He dodges all her attempts. She starts crying out of rage and he dismisses her anger because she is a woman | Villain | Source |
When we look at these 12 stories together, we can see that the entity of the samodivas is seen only in relation to people that encounter them. I wasn’t able to find any stories about what samodivas do when there are no humans around. In 10 out of the 12 stories, the samodiva is the clear opponent of humans and they have to defeat her. The victory over the samodiva is portrayed as a win for humankind. But, upon a closer look, we can see that all they are trying to do is to protect their territory, to try to keep it pristine and theirs. In all of those stories, the man is trying to intrude their territory for their own gain (i.e. for his herd). And when she shows up, not too happy about that, the only thing to do is to kill her. This shows the clear binary of man/woman and nature/culture. Man/culture have to win over woman/nature at all costs and whenever the latter appears to be stronger, it has to be tricked and defeated. In stories where the samodiva manages to escape the captivity of man, she is still the villain, even if the story clearly shows that she was kept against her will. The underlying value that this collection of stories is aiming to establish is twofold:
- The patriarchal society should be kept going at all costs (culture > nature)
- Samodivas that protect anything that humans want, need to die
- Samodivas that are forced to exist within that society, but if they escape, they are condemned
- Samodivas that want something in exchange for giving away their nature need to die
- When samodivas are killed, everything they stand for becomes man’s possession
- A woman that wishes to exist outside of that society is harmful (man > woman)
Of course, the nature of folklore is to exaggerate events and turn everything into a life/death situation, but it is interesting to see how all these stories reject any sort of coexistence with nature. The way to interact with nature is to conquer it. The way to interact with women that don’t want to be a man’s possession is also to conquer them or to kill them if they don’t want to cooperate.
The folktales and songs that are available to me fail to encapsulate what samodivas do when people are not around, but the twelve stories hint at the fact that in their distant lands, they have fun and stay together, they don’t work and they just have a good time. Georgieva (1983), however, has collected information from various sources around the country from oral folklore and what people’s perceptions have been over time - sisterhood and deep connection with nature persist. The twelve stories put the samodivas in clear opposition with humans/men and do not pay that much attention to the samodiva’s redeeming qualities. They are the enemy. In almost all of these stories, the humans invite the samodivas anger and their frustration is completely dismissed as unreasonable (and worthy of being killed).
This demonization of feminine anger and power reminds us of the story of Medusa from Greek Mythology. In the end, Perseus kills her and takes her head, both as a trophy and as a weapon. In her 1975 essay, “The Laugh of Medusa”, Hélène Cixous talks about how the myth of Medusa is one of the most misinterpreted stories in our histories and it is a symbol of women’s repressed creativity and power. She further extends that idea by saying that women have been taught to fear their own power and are taught to subject their bodies to control and regulation. The mention of her almost always implies something malevolent, something monstrous that seeks to destroy (men), but simply because she is perceived by those men as a trophy, as something that needs to be defeated, even though the myth itself shows that none of the reasons why she is “evil” is any of her fault - she was raped and then punished for being raped.
Even though the figure of the samodivas is not that intensely connected to human intervention at the beginning of their existence, there is a lot to be learned from what Cixous (1975) and others say about the demonization of the feminine and what that means for the structure and functioning of society. The samodivas embody deep power, which is both supernatural but also deeply rooted in knowledge and connection to nature, that seems to be inherently opposed to human civilization. But also, their community is attributed to the inexplicable forces of nature in the pre-Enlightenment society of Bulgaria (whirlwinds and epilepsy, among other chronic illnesses) (Georgieva, 1983). As Cixous (1975) says to explain the Medusa phenomenon, the feminization of monsters is a tool to demonize women themselves. Similarly, as Bulgarian folklore feminizes negative and destructive natural events (like whirlwinds, droughts, and storms) they create an implicit connection to the fact that if women embrace their full power, it will be destructive.
So, once this tight connection is created (powerful women = samodivas = natural disasters and illnesses), then the other characteristics that samodivas embody quickly follow that negative perception. Sisterhood and deep connection and protection of nature become associated with the demonic. In Krali Marko and a Samodiva, our attention is pointed to the fact that the samodiva gets furious because Krali Marko kills a plant in her garden with his very unnecessary game, but what is highlighted is how he manages to escape her attacks because he is so strong and important. In the end, he dismisses her rage by saying “You are crying because you are a woman, you will cry, you will cry, and you will be fine eventually”. This specific piece of folklore knowledge points to the fact that the demands of the samodivas (or of nature) are unreasonable and that the human (or man) wish will prevail. In this duel between brotherhood (playing with a giant rock) and sisterhood (growing a garden with herbs), the former is the winner, even though there is no logical reason for that to happen. The only reason is that the mystical and untamable are bad and we should try to defeat them at all costs.
Ultimately, the message that the folklore system spreads to its female audiences is that if you are unpredictable (to men), if you are untameable (i.e. if you have your own autonomous thoughts and desires), and if you are powerful and you have a strong community (sisterhood), you are a threat to society and you are the reason why bad things happen to good people (whirlwinds and illnesses). So you should take the path of least resistance - learn how to be a good daughter to your father which will make you a good wife to your husband which will make you a good mother to your sons. This conclusion inspired the samodiva character in the animation.