· 5 min read
Lamya: the many-headed monster that locks up the water
When the river runs dry and hail strikes the field, the lamya is to blame. Only one creature stands against her — the zmey.
The lamya is one of the most frightening monsters in Bulgarian tales. She has several heads, wings, scales and a tail, lives in caves, lakes and dry wells, and keeps the water for herself. Where the lamya has passed there is no rain and no bread.
What the lamya is
The descriptions differ from village to village. In one she is a huge winged serpent, in another a scaled, clawed beast. She has three heads, or nine, sometimes twelve. One thing is constant: the lamya is insatiable. She eats the grain, drinks the water and shuts the springs.
The lamya and the zmey
Her enemy is the zmey — a dragon too, but the guardian of the village and its fields. Every region was believed to have its own zmey, living in a mountain nearby. When the lamya drives the hail clouds towards the fields, the zmey flies out to meet her. Their fight is the storm: the thunder is their blows, the lightning their arrows, and rain means the zmey has won.
Close to the lamya is the hala — the storm with a shape, a whirlwind that breaks trees and beats the fields. In many regions the two blur together.
In the tales
In the tales the lamya holds a whole kingdom’s water and lets it go only for a sacrifice — usually a girl. A young hero rides out, cuts off her heads one by one, and out of them flow water and grain — everything she had kept locked away. The story is close to that of Saint George and the dragon.
Calling the rain
When a drought went on, villages had customs against it. The best known is the peperuda, “the butterfly”: a girl dressed in greenery dances from yard to yard while the women pour water over her and sing for rain. Another is the german, a clay figure that is buried to bring the rain.
Lamya is not the Greek Lamia
The name recalls the Greek Lamia, a woman-monster who steals children. They are not the same. The Bulgarian lamya is a dragon, and her story is about water and the harvest.
“Водата има цена” — water has a price
The lamya is the third legend in our Dark Folklore collection. On the back of the „Ламя“ tee is a three-headed winged lamya coiled around cracked dry earth, with the last drop in the middle, orange like blood, over the words “Капка вода. Капка кръв.” — a drop of water, a drop of blood.
In short
The lamya is a many-headed winged monster that locks up the water, brings drought and drives the hail. Her enemy is the zmey — and when they fight in the clouds, it rains.
