Dawn is breaking
But such a dawn as you've never seen.
The dawn is a young man riding on a horse.
The horse breathes and makes the dawn.
The moon is a ring on the young man’s finger,
And his weapons are small stars.

(Bulgarian ritual song for a young unmarried man)

Breathing The Dawn is a gloriously dark tale about the legendary hero, Krali Marko and his magical horse, Sharkoliya, set in a golden age when anything was possible.

They thunder through a mythic landscape where fierce women ride the whirlwinds, children ride on dreams and nightmares, and sparks fly from Sharkoliya's hooves. But can black Mother Earth hold Krali Marko’s unbridled power? There is a price to pay, for there can be no hero without a wound, and no warrior without a death.

With a spellbinding mix of storytelling, ritual, evocative music and stunning Bulgarian vocals, Breathing The Dawn is a hymn to the spirit of youth and a golden gift from the dark-edged heart of Bulgarian myth and folklore.  Leap into the saddle and ride....

(For adults. Not recommended for children under 10)

For this programme, A Spell In Time is joined by Bulgarian kaval and gaida player, Galen Nikolov.

For background notes on Krali Marko and Horse Mythology see below.

A Spell In Time gratefully acknowledges the support of  the Arts Council England Lottery Programme and The British Bulgarian Friendship Society.
 

Background Notes

Once upon a time horses were sacred. They were the companions of heroes, and galloped between the worlds bearing the gifts of life and death.

The cult of the horse was deeply rooted in Bulgaria’s ancestral Thracian, Slavic and Proto-Bulgarian cultures, and has left a rich legacy in the country’s traditional tales and folklore.

The ancient Thracians practised horse burial and sacrifice and revered the Thracian Horseman god, Hero, son and lover of the great mother goddess, Bendis. He was both the sun and the ruler of the nether world, bringer of life, death and fertility.

The horse was sacred to both the Slavs and to the nomadic Proto-Bulgarians, who founded the first Bulgarian kingdom in the Balkans under Khan Asparuh in 681 AD. The Proto-Bulgarians drank mares’ milk, divined with horse’s entrails, and their banner was a horse tail upon a spear. The horse was sacred to their sky god, Tangra.

After the adoption of Christianity in the 9^th century, the Thracian Horseman god was reincarnated in the Christian figure of St George, the dragon slayer, seen as the bringer of summer and fertility. St Dimiter, another warrior saint, is St George's twin brother and the bringer of winter. On 26th October (Dimitrovden) he rides his red horse across the sky, heralding the start of winter. When he shakes his beard, snow falls.

The medieval hero, Krali Marko on his horse Sharkoliya is also a mythological descendent of the Thracian Horseman. Most of the texts for Breathing The Dawn are drawn from the fragmented epic cycle about the hero. King Marko - Krali Marko or Marko Kraleviti - was a real historical figure living around the 14th century AD, who later became overlaid with earlier mythologies.

Marko was a Serb, son of Vulkashin. He ruled from the fortified town of Prilep, now in Macedonia, over a kingdom then inhabited by ethnic Bulgarians. The tales about him contain elements that go back to Thracian times. 

See Background to Bulgarian Myth and Folklore for more on Bulgaria's ancestral cultures.

Breathing The Dawn is based on our translations of Bulgarian heroic epics, folk ballads and traditional tales. We acknowledge our debt to those who told these stories and to the Bulgarian folklorists who collected and recorded their narratives as a gift to the future.

This material is largely unknown outside Bulgaria, and A Spell In Time’s work in translating and performing it is unique. The company brings to British audiences for the first time a distillation of Bulgarian traditional culture that offers an alternative insight into shared human experiences.

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