WHEN THE ROOSTER CALLS DEAD...

Vagabond hatched
From the white stone;
Strange songs he sang.
Dead he was calling.

Rooster calling the dead / Mixed media illustration

“When the rooster sings at the right time – he wakes a sleeping ones, half dead. When he sings in the wrong time, at night – he calling dead. Then people call him guilty.”

Rooster calls dead II / Mixed media illustration

“Rooster (the Guilty one) who sings at night somehow is always black. Night crept into it while he was a fetus in white stone – egg.”

Rooster with tied beak / Mixed media illustration

“When people kill the guilty one - they kill all the roosters, but he is always first - they tied his beak with red thread, to be silent, to accept his own death without a voice, and than dark force would not know that her accomplice is executed.”

Dragon-rooster / Mixed media illustration

“In some places it is believed that a rooster can be transformed into a dragon. Rooster gets dragon’s wings and then he fights against storms and hail clouds.”

More about the roosters, and other animals as well, plants and landscapes which have special meaning in Serbian mythology, you can read (if you know Serbian) in a new book, written by Milenko Bodirogić and illustrated by several mighty illustrators (my colleagues and friends) – About plants, animals and landscapes (O biljkama, životinjama i predelima).

The last book in the series Serbian mythology

A small book preview in the PDF format (5.68 MB) can be downloaded HERE.

Although the book is dedicated to the dead, it still speaks to the living – to You – the survivors who will not asleep their future children with a soft and delightful fairy tales.