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Wooden Church at Sihăstria Putnei Monastery, Bucovina, România

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Romania, 1987-1990, photographed by David Hadaller

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Inelele zmeilor(The rings of the Zmei) is the third story in the ‘Fairy tales of the waters’ collection and it goes a long way to subvert classic Romanian fairy tale conventions. Having read first read it at a time when I had to write long repetitive essays about said conventions it can’t score any lower than 5/5 from me.

Illustrations by Elena Boariu

Basmele Apelor by Monica Aslan

1987

Summary: A very doting mother of 3 zmei makes 3 enchanted whips to cheer her sons up after they failed in their one job of getting the plot rolling by kidnapping a princess. One whip turns men to stone, one folds entire land masses into rings for easy carry and one dispels the magic of the other two. And then she gets herself killed fighting the king that the said princess married, who also died of his wounds. The 3 brothers are still hung up on her and try to convince her to marry one of them and when refused they each steal in turn the mountains of the kingdom, the fields and the god damned sea.This lands us in the classic set up for most hero’s journeys in Romaninan fairy tales: some zmei steal a very precious natural resource, a hero journeys to the otherworld to get it back, guided by an old wisewoman and getting a bride in the process- either finding her locked up in the Zmei’s residence or as a reward from the ruler of their particular patch of land. This time however when the three sons of the Queen go to their mother to start the who’s worthy of going after the zmei routine, the local old wisewoman tells them to sit their pretty asses back down, they are certainly going to get turned to stone, this problem gets solved with brains not tropes. So she volunters her three daughters to go on a mission to recover the lost lands, which they do by being clever and god like at sowing and when they get back they each choose a prince to marry.

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Armăsarul Năzdravan(The enchanted stallion) is the tale of a prince who gets cursed by his own mother for his recklesness and refusal to grow up into a responsible human being. Overall it is enjoyable but I have some nitpicks. 4/5

Illustrations by Elena Boariu

Basmele Apelor by Monica Aslan

1987

A thing I have to mention is that this story suffers from a major cock-up on the editorial front, at least in my edition of the book. So…Daca aveti ca mine editia din ‘87 la pagina 40 ignorati textul de la primul paragraf pana la prima linie de dialog; si steluta nu trebuie sa existe deloc. Bucata aia de text trebuie citita dupa primul paragraf de pe pagina 42.

Ok with the technical dificulties out of the way on the the

Summary: Once upon a time there were a king and queen who only managed to have one child, that they loved so much they left him do whatever he wanted, which was mostly riding his favorite horse and avoiding any type of work and responsability. When the king died the queen couldn’t convince her son to grow up already and she tried her best to run the kingdom but died of exhaustion and cursed her brat to turn into a stallion until he learned to be a functioning adult. The curse makes it so that he is human during the day and a horse at nights and he does quickly come to regret his recklesness and neglect but is too ashamed of his condition to ask anyone for help. So he kind of wanders lonely-finds a neat cave palace while at it-until he stumbles into a beautiful smart princess and because this is a fairy tale they fall in love,sort of consensual kidnapping ensues and they marry. At first he doesn’t want to tell her of his condition, certain that she will want to leave him, but when she finds out her reaction is more akin to ‘get in loser we’re getting your curse lifted’. My gripe with this story is that it’s very clear from the begining how to lift the curse and while it does work with the established character, I think it would have been more satisfying if it was more of a riddle.

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Basmele Apelor(Fairy tales of the waters), the story that gave the name to the collection is actually 6 tales in one, the overaching one is that a retired sailor gets his single father life cut short by his daughters scheduled transformation into sea goddesses. 5/5

Illustrations by Elena Boariu

Basmele Apelor by Monica Aslan

1987

Summary: This one is kind of hard to summarize cause as I said it is 6 tales in one. The framing tale is about a sailor who likes the look of an abandoned palace on an island and decides to retire there, despite people telling him weird stuff happens on the island every 15 years on account of the place being sacred to the Lord of the Waters. When the first landmark rolls around a beautiful woman with no memory of her past life washes on the shore and they like eachother and marry. Unfortunately the lady dies giving birth, which is devastating to the sailor but he takes solace in rasing their daughter. Unfortunately when her 15th birthday the Lord of the Waters comes by and she dissapears with him, leaving her dad alone and heartbroken. To keep him from succumbing to his grief all of the sailors old friends bring him a baby they found floating around in their travels. Which he does and is really happy for a time but when the next 15 year landmark rolls around they also dissapear. Wrecked by grief and convinced he angered the god by setling on his sacred island the sailor throws himself into the sea, but is pulled  out of the waves by his daughters who have become sea goddesses and they tell him the tales of their mothers. Each of the moms got screwed by the crewl universe and sexist societies and wanting a better life for their daughters so they offered them to the Lord of Waters-except the sailor’s wife who had sort of a first born deal with the Lord in exchange for her life. So, knowing his daughters are OK, the sailor keeps chilling on the island where he is regularly visited by the new goddesses.

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Domnița Ruxandra by Elvira Bogdan

Illustrated by Elena Boariu Opriș

1983

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Curtea de Argeș Cathedral, Wallachia

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Brasov, Romania   alexpht23

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Traditional marriage in Oas, Racsa, Maramures

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Sorcova near Obor, Bucharest, ca. 1928

as seen at the “Oborul, ieri și azi” exhibit at Veranda Mall

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The green road

Sighișoara, April 2018

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young Romanian women from Craiova

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Folklore Festival of Ukrainians in Romania

“Dimitrie Gusti” National Village Museum, Bucharest, Romania

4 June 2022

Nikon FM2 / Fujicolor 200

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Greuceanu by Yuuza

loosely inspired by the romanian fairytale “greuceanu” the girl is not some sort of angel but a raven, she’s giving Greuceanu water because he promised her 3 corpses to eat while his opponent promised only one pretty twisted but that’s romanian folklore for you

#i know her #ril

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Hello. She’s ready. As I said before, I unashamedly decided to reference Romanian/Transylvanian traditional costumes for my interpretation of Laudna, both because I myself am from there, and also because it just fits so well as it pertains to her backstory + official portrait.

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~ Female face/helmet mask.

Culture: Roman

Period: Middle Imperial Period

Date: 2nd half of A.D. 2nd century

Place of origin: River Olt near Resca , Romania

Medium: Sheet copper, embossed and chased.

▪︎ From the source: Face helmets like this one were worn by cavalry units of the Roman army for tournament-like cavalry games. This front part of a helmet shows a female face, the hair parted in the middle. The head is adorned with an oak wreath and a band from which a lunula pendant hangs over the forehead. Punched inscriptions name two different owners of the helmet (Priscus and Vitalis).

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skeleton of cave bear in Bears Cave, Romania