Enchanting Solomonars, Romanian Cloud-Chaser Sorcerers #Im4Ro

Balea Lac mountain reflected in lake

Enchanting Solomonars, these Romanian cloud-chaser sorcerers, are also called eagles or hail-gatherers, by their skills; cloud-walkers by their powers; dragon-riders to the welkin and back, by their means of transport.

The Solomonars were revered, yet feared, called upon, yet shunned for their innate understanding of nature’s forces; for their instinctive ability to read the weather, even in its wildest exhibitions; for their solid grasping of what was there, yet not seen, felt, yet intangible, life-threatening towards everyone else, but themselves.

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Dreamy Blues, Authentic 1885 Tulcea House by the Black Sea #Im4Ro

Window shutters painted in dreamy blues adorn an authentic house from 1885 Tulcea, a Romanian county spreading between Danube and the Black Sea.

Window shutters painted in dreamy blues adorn an authentic house from 1885 Tulcea, that dips its shores in both the Danube and the Black Sea. You can visit it now, on my blog, or at the Village Museum in Bucharest, Romania.

We have a Romanian saying, Omul sfinţeşte locul, in English it carries the same meaning as “a good farmer makes a good farm.”

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A New Literary Comparison, Bram Stoker’s Dracula – Vlad the Impaler

New Literary Comparison Bram Stoker Dracula Vlad Impaler

A reader’s literary comparison between Bram Stoker’s Gothic character Dracula and Wallachian Voivode Vlad the Impaler, aka Vlad Dracula.

I was reading through the notes Bram Stoker made prior to writing his gothic Dracula novel – the originals should be in Rosenbach Museum & Library of Philadelphia. Like many of you, I know that the opinions are divided between scholars and fans who believe that Stoker used Vlad the Impaler as his inspiration for Dracula, and those who do not.

If my scientific background taught me anything, is to research and draw my own conclusions. So here we go, looking at Bram Stoker’s notes and at how he portrayed his literary character Count Dracula and comparing them to what historical documents and sources tell us about Vlad the Impaler the man, aka Vlad Dracula, Vlad III, Voivode of Wallachia.

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