Романские повелители погоды: Волшебники Соломонары в фольклоре.

Weather controlling wizards in Romanian folklore
The Solomonar or Șolomonar (German phonetization: Scholomonar) is a wizard believed in Romanian folklore to ride a dragon (zmeu or a balaur) and control the weather, causing rain, thunder, or hailstorm. They are recruited from common folk and taught their magic at the Solomonărie or Şolomanţă (German phonetization: Scholomance).

The Solomonars are said to be tall, red haired, wearing long white robes of peasants, The contents of their magic bag are instruments such as an iron axe used as lightning rod (also as a wand to summon them or his mount), birchbark reins or a golden bridle, and a book of wisdom which contained all their knowledge, and is the source of their power. However, they apparently have the knowledge and memory of which peasant's farm deserves his retribution when he acts as a dragon rider sending down his hailstorm.

The Solomonari, by some accounts, are recruited from the people. An additional belief was that the students were taught at the Devil's school which was situated underground, and that the students avoided the rays of the sun for the 7 year duration of their study. Refn|group="lower alpha"|Marian adds here the belief that the strigoi, like the vampire avoided eating garlic or having contact with it. And had to be buried faced down with garlic in its mouth to prevent him resurrecting and causing mischief. This dragon can be brought out of a bottomlessly deep lake by using "golden reins" or bridle (ein goldene Zaum"; ), and the wizard and dragon would create storms or bring down hail.

"Scholomance" and "Scholomonariu" appeared in print in the Austrian journal Österreichische Revue in 1865, written by Wilhelm Schmidt (1817–1901) The piece is discussed as a belief present in the Central Romanian Fogarasch (Făgăraș) district and beyond, with additional lore from Hermannstadt. Emily Gerard later wrote on the topic of "Scholomance", although she only referred to its attendees as "scholars", and did not specifically employ the term Solomanari or the equivalent. Romanian ethnobotanist Simion Florea Marian described the Solmonari in his article on "Daco Romanian Mythology" in the (1879. Marian collected this folklore orally from the people in Siebenbürgen (Transylvania) and the adjoining Bukovina Moldavia region.

Solomonar is the singular form, and the variant Șolomonar also listed.

The default explanation is that the word is connected to King Solomon via the addition of the occupational suffix " ar", although this may be folk etymology. Gaster, more complicatedly, suggested a hybrid of the word for the magic school Scholomantze (Romanian orthography: Şolomanţă) from association with Salamanca, and Solomonie (from Solomon). An alternate derivation from the German Schulmänner ("scholars"), in reference to the popular belief that solomonars attended a school, is credited to J. Vulcan.

King Solomon as weather maker may derive from the Greek myth of Zeus the king of gods controlling the weather, a theory proposed by A. Oișteanu This notion that Solomon's adherents were wizards may have been popularized by the influence of the adventure tale Solomon and Morcolf.

As the Solomonari have been described as red haired giants (uriaşi, pl. ), a connection to them and the legendary Red Jews (evreilor roşii) has been suggested by This hypothesis builds on Lazăr Șăineanu's theory that giant/Jews in Romanian folklore derived from the historical Khazars, and Arthur Koestler bringing the notion of the "Red Jews" into that formulation (Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe, the ultimate source being A. N. Poliak's book on the Khazars in Hebrew).

Similarity with the Geto Dacian ascetics called the ktistai described by Strabo was noted by Traian Herseni (d. 1980) who hypothesized that they were the original Solomonari. Herseni posited that the ktisai were more properly called "skistai" meaning "those who abstain from worldly pleasures", and that the cryptic byname that Strabo gave them Kapnobatai (which literally means "smoke treaders"

Parallels with the legend of the Serbo Croatian garabancijaš dijak (garabonciás diák) "necromantic scholar" had been sought in Moses Gaster's paper, which is one a major source for the Solomanari folkloristics. The Croatian version was described by Vatroslav Jagić and the Hungarian version by
A number of synonyms can be found in Romanian, including "zgrimințeș", and it is considered synonymous or closely connected to the widespread Balkan legend known in Serbo Croatian (for example) as grabancijaš dijak ("the necromancy student").

Some sources like to refer to the dragons that the Solomonari ride as "storm dragons". The riders may travel together with Moroi. Fearing their wrath, people usually ask a Master Stonemason for advice. This Master Stonemason is a former Solomonar himself, who dropped the craft in favor of being again amongst people; his knowledge is highly prized because he knows the secrets of Solomonars. The Solomonars were not supernatural creatures, but rather humans who learned special abilities. It is said that the children who become solomonar are born bearing a particular type of membrane on their head or on the whole of their body. Later, as the legend says, these children were to be selected into apprenticeship by experienced Solomonars, taken into forests or in caves which would usually be marked with encoded inscriptions. These children would learn the art and craft of wizardry, which they would use to fight against the dark forces of nature and of the human spirit. They are often said to be very secretive and if they lied or broke the caste rules, they were severely and cruelly punished. Some accounts state that Solomonars have a special book in which all their knowledge and power is gathered. This is the book they use during their apprenticeship and only one out of seven apprentices becomes a solomonar. The Solomonars lived like ascetics, away from the civilized world, and sometimes they are said to actually live on "the other realm" although they are known to return to civilization and beg for alms although they do not need anything and wherever they are not received well, they would call a hailstorm as a means of punishment. In early times, the solomonars were considered benevolent, but as Christianity began to supplement early beliefs, the "solomonars" started to be perceived as evil and the popular beliefs even invented an "anti solomonar" hero type. Fortunately, as it has been observed, the belief in "solomonars" has not died out; it had diminished over time but it is still kept in remote locations of Romania. The "Solomonars" are often rather seen as cunning and intelligent people. However, generally speaking, people did and do not treat them as evil wizards.

Friedrich von Müller (1857) reported a story from Schäßburg (Sighișoara in Transylvania) in which a Romanian mistook a robed student for a solomonar.