The Hero god, also known as the Thracian Horseman, as he was worshiped by the Thracians, was not a specific person. Although ancestor worship of real people who had done great deeds bled into it, the Thracian Hero was an abstract figure, the idea of a Hero. It is this metaphysical entity around which worship centered. The Hero was no doubt the central figure in Thracian religion, the hope and faith of the people. Their hero was all­seeing and all­hearing, he was the sun and also the ruler of the nether world, he was the protector of life and health, and kept the forces of evil at bay. In modern Bulgaria he continues to perform that function going by the name of St. George.

The Thracian Hero was depicted all the time, all over the place. Always on a horse, slaying something, slaying anything, usually with a spear. Over 1500 stone reliefs and more than 100 bronze statuettes of the Horseman have been uncovered on the territory of present-day Bulgaria. From antiquity, through Roman times, through the middle ages, and today, the immage of the Horseman is inescapable in Bulgaria.

The Thracian Hero is also responsible for the Greek word ‘Heros’ from which the English word ‘hero’ is derived.

This hero-god was a war-god, he was the son of Bendis {The Great Mother of Gods} and her lover. He was worshipped at hundreds of sanctuaries, peasants are still making pilgrimages to one of Bulgaria’s main Thracian Horseman sanctuaries, in fact that is how a lot of Thracian archeological sites in Bulgaria have been found.Arheologists just followed the local people to the places where they performed their “Christian” rituals, in fact the rituals and celebrations were {Like St. Trifon} Christian only by name. In most cases the peasants didn’t even know that the places they went to were ex-Thracian altar sites, they had simply been going there since time in memorial, only after the archeologists dug the site, did the people see the Thracian altars. 1000 years earlier the Church had done a very good job of burying “pagan” alters, and erasing the “pagan” names, but it couldn’t change, or eliminate the culture and rituals. Today St. George is the Hero’s new name. You can see images of St. George on a horse, slaying a dragon, all over Bulgaria.Here’s the evolution of the Thracian Hero over the centuries.
The Thracian Horseman
The Madara Rider
St. George

Similar Topics from Ancient Bulgaria Archive

» The Thracian Tombs near the villages of Aleksandrovo and Silistra
» The Madara Rider rock relief
» A little more Thracian history from the very beginning part I
» The Sacred Tombs of the Rulers of the Getae
» Thracians, the oldest people in the Balkans Part 3