Understand Romania
Myths and Legends
56 cards · 52 + 4 jokers
Culture playing cards · First edition 2026
Every card is a Romanian legend: the Iele, the strigoi, Muma Pădurii, Făt-Frumos, zmei and dragons. Learn where each story comes from and what lives on today.
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All the stories (10)
- ILEANA COSÂNZEANA — folk tale. The most beautiful girl in Romanian fairy tales: “you could look at the sun, but not at her”. To win her, Făt-Frumos goes through trials and fights dragons and monsters. Her name may come from the Sânziene, the fairies of summer. For Romanians she is the image of beauty and kindness.
- ZBURĂTORUL — folk belief · Heliade Rădulescu, 1843. A spirit of love who comes at night, like a flame or a fiery serpent, to young girls. The girl he visits grows pale, dreams and finds no peace. Ion Heliade Rădulescu wrote the poem “Zburătorul” about him in 1843. Old women said this explained the longing of first love.
- THE IELE — folk belief. Beautiful and dangerous fairies who dance at night in the air above forest clearings. Where they dance, the grass stays burnt in a ring. Whoever sees them or hears their song may be “taken by the Iele”: paralysed or out of their mind. Their name was never spoken; people called them “They” or “the Fair Ones”.
- SÂNZIENELE — night of 23 to 24 June. On the night of Sânziene, the good fairies of summer dance in the fields and give power to flowers and healing herbs. Girls weave crowns of yellow lady's bedstraw and throw them onto the roof: if the crown stays up, they will marry that year. The feast comes from the summer solstice and is still kept today.
- THE URSITOARE — folk belief. On the third night after a birth, three fates come to the baby's cradle and decide its destiny. One spins the thread of life, one winds it, the third cuts it. The family leaves bread, salt and wine on the table to keep them kind. What they have decided can never be changed.
- DRĂGAICA — 24 June · Muntenia and Oltenia. Drăgaica is the fairy of ripe fields. On 24 June, a girl chosen by the village, crowned with ears of wheat, walks with other girls through the fields and sings so that the wheat will be rich. Whoever does not honour the day may be punished by her. The custom is close to Sânziene and belongs to midsummer.
- DRAGOBETELE — 24 February. Son of Baba Dochia, young god of love and spring. On 24 February, when “the birds get engaged”, girls and boys went into the forest for snowdrops and ran back: the boy who caught a girl could kiss her. Whoever keeps Dragobete will be loved all year. Today it is called the Romanian Valentine's Day.
- MĂRȚIȘOR — 1 March · UNESCO heritage since 2017. On 1 March people give a twisted red and white string with a small charm. Red and white stand for winter and spring, for life and purity. It is worn for a few days or all of March, then hung on a blossoming tree. In 2017, UNESCO added the custom to its heritage list.
- LUCEAFĂRUL — Mihai Eminescu, 1883. The evening star comes down from the sky out of love for an emperor's daughter, Cătălina. To be with her, he asks God to make him mortal. But the girl chooses Cătălin, an earthly page. Eminescu's poem of 1883 has 98 stanzas and is the best-known poem of Romanian literature.
- THE RUSALII — 50 days after Easter. Female spirits who roam the earth in the week of Pentecost. At night they fly over waters and fields and harm those who work on their days. People wear wormwood at the waist and put it in the windows. The Călușari dance is linked to them; it was said to heal those “taken by the Rusalii”.
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Game: Myths and Legends
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