Wings - Canvas

A zduhać in Serbian tradition, and a dragon man in Bulgarian, Macedonian and southern Serbian traditions, were men believed to have an inborn supernatural ability to protect their estate, village, or region against destructive weather conditions, such as storms, hail, or torrential rains. It was believed that the souls of these men could leave their bodies in sleep, to intercept and fight with demonic beings imagined as bringers of bad weather. Having defeated the demons and taken away the stormy clouds they brought, the protectors would return into their bodies and wake up tired.

 

The notion that the human being consists of body and soul is found in traditional Slavic culture. There was a belief among the South Slavs that, in some people, the soul could leave the body and again return into it. The zduhać belonged to such people in Serbian tradition. It was thought that, after a zduhać fell asleep, his soul could fly out of his body, or "go into the winds", as it was said in Montenegro. In some accounts, it exited the body in the form of a fly. The zduhać's soul had the power to direct the motion of winds and clouds. If the body of the sleeping zduhać was rotated so that his head and feet changed places, or if he was carried away from where he fell asleep, his soul would not be able to return into his body, and the zduhać would die.