Read Dennica :: Chapter 1,5

Dictionary:

* chubritsa - Bulgarian for the spice "savoury".

* popara - A simple breakfast, made by soaking old bread in milk, hot tea or water. Popular in the Balkans. My grandfather used to add a bit of sugar when he'd make it with milk.

* bolyarka - The female counterpart of bolyarin - a nobility tittle held in feudal Bulgaria (bolyarin/bolyar), Russia (boyar/boyarin), Moldova, Wallachia (boier). It originates from the Bulgar boila.

* riza - Bulgarian for button shirt, as well as the traditional undergarment worn by Slavs. Ussually embroidered, regardless of it is worn by men or women. Could be translated as chemise when reffering to the female one.

(Women's riza from Novo Selo village, Vidin District and a men's riza from Slavyanovo village, Pleven District, Bulgaria. Both are part of the Northern Folklore region. Both images are from M. Veleva and Evg. Lepavtsova's Bulgarian National Dress book.)

* Dolna zemya - Litteraly "The land bellow". It is not the place where the souls of the dead reside, but rather a country on its own. Often in tales heros find themselves transported to it by riding the black ram, instead of the white one (which would tansport them to the suface). After helping the tzar of the land, most commonly by defeating a zmey or lamya, the hero is taken back to the surface by an eagle.

* nosiya -

* maluk bolyarin - Lesser bolyarin. Durring the First Bulgarian Empire the nobility was devided to great and lesser bolyari. In this story, the great bolyari are 12 and all hold the tittle "knyaz", while the rest fall under the cathegory of lesser.

* yunak - Hero.

* zmey - A being from Slavic folk beliefs and myths. The appearance of the zmey resembles that of a snake, a man and a bird. The zmey has wings, legs and a tail. He controls whirlwinds and thunder, makes clouds, etc. The image of a zmey - snake is reflected in the folk songs, more precisely of the mythologized snake - usually multi-headed and multi-tailed, which is a hyperbolization of its strength. According to Bulgarian folklore, the zmey is a good and benevolent to humans. It is the guardian of the land of the village and protects it from lamyas, hali and other zmeys, from hail and other disasters. Where there is a zmey, there is fertility, because he drives away the hail clouds. As soon as a black cloud sets in, bringing torrential hail and led by the hala, the zmey sets into battle.

According to notions widely used in folk songs, the zmey can fall in love with an ordinary girl or woman, and the zmeyitsa (the zmey’s female counterpart) with a young man. The separation of a girl from the zmey who loves her and that of a boy from the zmeyitsa can only happen if one knew the herbs that had the power to separate and would be used for the making of a potion, that would be poured on the one loved by the zmey or zmeyitsa. Usually ones loved by zmeys didn’t live long. People believed viewed being loved by a zmey as a desease - the loved one had auditory and visual hallucinations, they’d go crazy. If the zmey was not banished, children would be born with wings under their arms, but they’d soon die.

* lamya - The image of the lamya and the hala should be added to the image of the zmey. The lamya was represented as a huge reptile with pointed legs and a dog’s head or heads with sharp teeth. Her mouth is so wide that she can swallow a whole person or an animal. She has large membranous wings, while her body is covered with yellow scales. Often imagined as having three or nine identical heads. She lives in desolate forests, stops the waters of wells and rivers and wants sacrifices to let them go again. However, she is defeated by heroes such as St. George, Krali Marko, Branko Yunak, Hrabryu Yunak.

* hala - The Bulgarian people imagined the hala as a thick fog over the field, which damages fertility of the land. In another belief, it was like a black cloud, pouring rain from its tail, taking everything on the ground.

Explanation:

Q: What are Kalina and Beloslava doing at the begging of the chapter?

A: They are making lyutenitsa (can be spelled as ljutenitsa or lutenica as well) - a vegetable spread popular in Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia. The main ingredient is tomato, with peppers, eggplants, salt, carrots, spices and others being added as well. Often confused with ajvar, another popular and delicious spread from the Balkans. The difference is that with ajvar, the main ingridient are the peppers.

Q: How does Delyana's dress look?

(Recreation of a noble woman's clothing, depicted in a fresco from the church in Kalotina village, Bulgaria; 1330s; The recreation is work of researcher Kalina Atanasova. The link of her website shall be in the discription).

Q:What is a two apron dress?

A: One of the four styles of Bulgarian women's traditional clothing, along the sukman, saya and one apron dress. In the story, I'll be showing only the two apron and sukman, as I feel they fit best. The two apron style dress is popular in the Northern Folklore region (Almost all of North Bulgaria, minus Silistra and Dobrich - they are part of the Dobrudzha Folklore region). It consists of a riza, and apron tied at the front and one tied at the back. The apron tied at the back carries different names - bruchnik, vulnenik, pishtimal, etc.

A two apron style summer work dress from thhe village of Lopyan, Botevgrad District(M. Veleva and Evg. Lepavtsova's Bulgarian National Dress) :

The motive of people build in constructions excists throughout the world. However it is one of the most popular ones in Bulgarian folklore, perticulary the versions that tell of three brothers taking the desicion of sacrifasing the wife of one of them.

All three song are authentic folk songs from different regions and published in different collections of folk songs.