The Ideology Of The Ninth And Tenth Centuries 85
Its image is also found on Bulgarian medieval monuments (from the Second
Bulgarian Empire and in Volga Bulgaria). The dragon is the mediator between
the Lower and the Upper World and incorporates the symbols of fire and
water.302 The dragon is similar to the zmei in Bulgarian folklore (zmei—a fan-
tastic creature in Bulgarian folklore, similar to the dragon or serpent. The word
itself can be seen as a masculine form for the Slavic word for snake). According
to some Bulgarian beliefs, the zmei sits in the crown of the tree and is compa-
rable to the eagle (in its role as dragon-fighter) and not the snake which lies
amid the roots.303 It is possible that a similar notion is reflected in the image of
the world tree, depicted on a series of ceramic vessels found it the Agachkala
settlement in Dagestan and dated from the first half of the eighth century.304
There, the crown of the tree is replaced by a snake, curled in the shape of a
spiral. L. Gmyria interprets the appearance of the snake as a trend towards the
substitution of the female deity (the tree) with the male one (the snake).305
T. Mollov takes up another semantic thread, though still associating the
zmei with the water element and the royal dynasty, with his interpretation of
the hala Semendra from Bulgarian folklore (cf. the names of Smederevo and
of the old Khazar capital Samandar). According to one possibility, Semendra
originates from Thracian beliefs, in which the name Skamander is given to a
river near Troy, presented by Homer as a river god and ancestor of the Trojans.306
In the Bulgarian essay The Miracle of Saint George and the Dragon, “among the
deities worshipped by the forefathers of the maiden, saved by the saint, are
“Heraklion and Apollo [.. .] Skamander and Artemis”, and Skamander could
also symbolize the water zmei.307 Another possibility in T. Mollov’s view is the
connection with the salamander lizard or the “river monster” which the men
hide from when they go down to the river to gather sand for the ritual table on
the night before Christmas.308
Of particular interest is the Bulgarian belief that the zmei originates from
a snake, a grass-snake or a carp that has lived 40 years without being seen by
302 Doncheva-Petkova 1996, 82–84.
303 Georgieva 1993, 52–54; Benovska-Subkova 1995, 74 and 133.
304 This series is closely associated with images of the world tree from the complex of the
Urtseki hillfort, dated between the fourth and seventh centuries. See Gmyria 2008.
305 Gmyria 2008, 19 assuming that the image in question is of a male deity, the snake is usu-
ally the husband of the Goddess (see for instance Campbell 2005, 29). In this case, her cult
is not necessarily being “substituted”.
306 Mollov 1997, 147.
307 Mollov 1997, 148.
308 Mollov 1997, 148–150.