And now for serious Treasure Hunters in
Bulgaria
Extracts from 18th century book
on
Bulgarian Treasure Hunting
by
Saint Clair and Brophy.
The Bulgarians,
from their sordid and avaricious nature, are especially fond of money,
and the peasant who would not go to the fountain after nightfall, even
to save the lives of his father and mother, for fear of seeing the
Spirits which haunt it, will confront all kinds of supernatural
dangers on the chalice of discovering a treasure; although he will not
do two hours' work in order to earn a shilling, or to improve his
fields, he will dig for three or four consecutive nights with his hair
standing on end and the cold sweat of terror on his brow, in the hope
of finding some treasure supposed to have been buried by Delhi Marco
or Alexander the Great.
We have been lately invited (probably
because it is thought that two Englishmen must be more than a match
for all the Spirits of Darkness in Bulgaria) to assist in digging up a
famous treasure which is buried somewhere near the river Kamchyk
(Kamchia) and guarded sometimes by a sudden and violent storm of
thunder, wind, and rain, sometimes by a gigantic and frightful negro,
whose head reaches to the clouds and whose lower lip hangs down to
earth. The man who requested our presence and assistance had tried six
weeks before to unearth this treasure, but at the first blow of the
pick the storm made its appearance, and as on the second night the
negro showed himself, everybody was frightened and judged it better to
give up the undertaking for the present, in consideration of the
supernatural obstacles encountered.
Sir James George Frazer (1854–1941). The Golden Bough. 1922.
Thus in Bohemia
it is said that “on Saint John’s Day fern-seed blooms with golden
blossoms that gleam like fire.” Now it is a property of this mythical
fern-seed that whoever has it, or will ascend a mountain holding it in
his hand on Midsummer Eve, will discover a vein of gold or will see
the treasures of the earth shining with a bluish flame. In Russia they
say that if you succeed in catching the wondrous bloom of the fern at
midnight on Midsummer Eve, you have only to throw it up into the air,
and it will fall like a star on the very spot where a treasure lies
hidden. In Brittany treasure-seekers gather fern-seed at midnight on
Midsummer Eve, and keep it till Palm Sunday of the following year;
then they strew the seed on the ground where they think a treasure is
concealed. Tyrolese peasants imagine that
hidden treasures can be seen glowing like flame on Midsummer Eve, and
that fern-seed, gathered at this mystic season, with the usual
precautions, will help to bring the buried gold to the surface. In the
Swiss canton of Freiburg people used to watch beside a fern on Saint
John’s night in the hope of winning a treasure, which the devil
himself sometimes brought to them. In Bohemia they say that he
who procures the golden bloom of the fern at this season has thereby
the key to all hidden treasures; and that if maidens will spread a
cloth under the fast-fading bloom, red gold will drop into it.
Besides the well-known method of
discovering treasures on the eve of Saint John, a curious rite is
practised here to propitiate the guardian spirits. When the precise
locality has been found, some of the ashes thrown out into the Harman
during the Kulada are spread at night over the place. The footmark
which is seen imprinted next morning is that of the animal which the
genius requires as a propitiatory offering.
In the case of one treasure of which we have been
told, the footprint seen the next day was that of a man, showing that
a human victim was required before the money could be dug up; for the
present this spot has been abandoned, and it is to be
hoped that no
Bulgarian will be tempted to make his fortune by a preliminary murder.
An hour's journey from Aladzha Manastir (a Greek
monastery), in the neighbourhood of Balchik, is a rocky valley called
Kourou Dere, in which is a cavern with an iron door, always ajar,
through which may be seen an inner cave filled with gold and silver. A
Bulgarian Choban entered one day, filled his belt and his pockets with
coin, and turned to go out; to his dismay he found the door closed and
a hideous negro, armed with pistols and sword, guarding the exit.
The Choban threw away all his gold, but the door remained shut, and
the negro drew his sword; then he noticed that a piece of money had
stuck in his charrek (sandal), and on flinging this away he was
allowed to escape, very glad to have come off so well. In the past in
Bulgaria their "country bumpkins" were chobans).
Another time a Turkish Hodja resolved to
possess himself of the treasures enclosed in the same enchanted
cavern, and set out for Kourou Dere armed with an ancient book of
necromancy, and accompanied by seven Bulgarians to carry the spoil and
three Turks to guard it. He entered the antechamber and, having
strictly forbidden his followers to utter a word whatever they might
see or hear, commenced reading aloud from his magic volume; as he
read, a side door opened in the rock, disclosing a motionless lady of
marvellous beauty.
The Hodja continued
reading, and the damsel took off her head-dress and laid it upon the
ground; the Hodja, without ceasing his reading, removed his turban and
laid it on the top of the head-dress: presently the lady took off her
jacket and the Hodja his, observing the same ceremony of
superimposition, and so it went on till lady and schoolmaster (the
latter still reading) appeared in the costume of Adam. and Eve before
the fall.
Then a young
Turk forgot the injunction given, and called out, “I say Hodja, what
are you doing?” At these words a sudden blast of wind transported the
treasure-seeker and his companions to a spot just outside the walls of
Aladzha Manastir. What became of the Hodja's garments our informant
was unable to tell us.
At Pietrych Kaleh, near Gebidjie, the
villagers of Evren (Avren?) found a great treasure, but four men
(they were Bulgarians) died of terror in digging it up.
Between our village and Varna there
is an old choked-up well which the country people say is Genoese. In
Bulgaria, almost all antiquities are attributed, both by Turks and
Rayahs, to the Genoese; at Karamanja, in Roumelia, there are some very
perfect remains of a Roman wall, probably that built by Hadrian, from
the Danube to the Black Sea, in which may still be traced the gate and
flanking towers; these are termed Genoese by the people of the
neighbourhood, as are also some ruins in the same vicinity, which,
judging from the fragments of pottery and sculptured stone which we
saw, appear to belong to the old Macedonian empire.
Nicolaki went
there with others to search for treasure, and after a whole day's hard
work they found a dead squirrel, which they threw out on the ground.
Nicolaki said, “Why I think it's a squirrel!" and the little animal
jumped up and climbed up on a tree. When they had dug to a depth of
twenty feet they saw a big snake, also dead, and pitched him out too.
Next day they resumed their labour and, to their horror, saw the same
snake alive in the same hole. This was too much for their nerves, fear
conquered cupidity, and they left the place; but in the course of
their excavations they sounded a hole beneath them of about sixty
feet, so that they would have had three days' good work to arrive at
the bottom of the well, even supposing that they were not impeded by
any further supernatural manifestations.
The same Nicolaki was also engaged at night in
looking for another supposed treasure not far from this well. The
workers heard mysterious voices from the depths of the lake enjoining
them to desist; but though they were in a terrible fright they kept on
until all at once day broke, and they saw a squadron of Turkish
cavalry charging at them through the cover; then the Bulgarians took
to their heels and never ceased running till they got to their own
village, where, to their astonishment, they found it still was night
and that the earliest cock had not yet crowed!
All of this, of course, whilst under the heal of the Ottoman Turkish
yoke.
Gold Fever in Bulgaria
while loading
