122 CHAPTER 1
It can be assumed with good reason that in Bulgaria the goddess was asso-
ciated with the ruling dynasty. The myth of the foundling child has similar
meaning. This child is usually raised by an animal (a she-wolf, doe, bear, etc.),
which may be a reincarnation of the Great Goddess.494 Iv. Venedikov assumed
that the story of Ispor, carried in a basket for three years that was mentioned
in the Bulgarian Apocryphal Chronicle shares the same motif;495 however,
he later abandoned this theory.496 The tale of the foundling child (the ruler
of the Bulgars) that was miraculously saved by a doe can be also found in a
Lithuanian chronicle.497 This account is of particular importance, given the
view of P. Dobrev that the name Avitokhol could be translated as “Doe Child”.498
According to Ts. Stepanov, the doe could be an incarnation of the Great
Goddess and “could have played the role of leader and ancestor—not unlike
the wolf, regarded as the ancestor of the Turkic peoples”.499
Directly related to the topic is the legend, told by Procopius of Caesarea,
about a deer that was hunted by the brothers Utigur and Kutrigur, that showed
them a flow path through the Sea of Azov, after which Kutrigur settled on
the other side. This storyline is widespread among many peoples in Steppe
Eurasia. The doe is apparently a zoomorphic image of both the future wife of
Kutrigur and the supreme female deity. The goddess—as a wife or mother—
the dead (from graveyards), with the white color symbolizing the concept of the under-
world. In some places he is worshipped as a saint of hailstorms. He is the patron of brides
and births (this is related to the chthonic nature of his image) (Popov 1991, 83–111). “Wintry
Saint Todor is a fearsome mythical horseman [.. .] he is a kind of proto-creator who estab-
lishes the new cosmic order and marks the beginning of yet another natural and social
cycle. By transforming chaos into cosmos, the saint banishes winter and death, insemi-
nates the earth himself or with the hooves of his magical horse and disappears again in
the celestial or underground kingdom of ancestors” (Popov 1991, 110–111). According to
Popov 1991, 99, the ritualism of the St. Todor celebrations originates from the (Proto-)
Bulgarian pagan tradition.
494 Stepanov 1999b, 56 and 64; Iordanov 1995, 36.
495 Venedikov 1995a, 67ff; the exact words are “a child, carried in a basket for three years” with
the word basket being one of the possible interpretations. The other one is cow and is the
more plausible translation in Mollov’s opinion (Mollov 1997, 34). According to Rashev
2008, 317, the version “in a basket” should be rejected in favor of “in a cow”. The account
from the chronicle shall be examined later on from this point of view.
496 Venedikov 1995b, 230–232.
497 Dobrev 1995, 59–60; Stepanov 1999b, 56.
498 Dobrev 1995, 61; see also Stepanov 1999b, 57–58.
499 Stepanov 1999a, 40. The Magyars had a similar legend. According to it, Hunor and Magor
(the ancestors of the Huns and Magyars) were led by a deer across Meotida (Sea of Azov).
See Gyóni 2007, 34–43. Georgieva 1993, 48–50 sees the deer in Bulgarian folklore as a
semantic equivalent of the world tree.