Hermannstadt in central Romania (modern Sibiu, Romania, called Nagyszeben in Hungarian). Stoker's novel locates the Scholomance near a non-existent "Lake Hermannstadt". The , as it was called by the Romanians, was situated underground, according to Romaninan folklorist Simion Florea Marian. Students there shunned sunlight for the seven-year duration of their training. Weathermaker By some accounts, one of the ten graduating students would be chosen by the Devil to be the Weathermaker () and to ride a dragon (zmeu in Romanian) in this errand; every time the dragon glanced at the clouds, rainfall would come. But according to legend, God made sure the dragon would not weary, because if it plummeted, it would devour a great part of the earth. The Solomonari's dragon-mount was, however, a balaur according to folklorist Marian's account. Origins Scholomance is a Germanization, Solomonărie was the Romanian form according to the popular beliefs collected by Marian, and an alternate Șolomanțâ is given elsewhere. These forms suggest a tie to King Solomon, and it has been pointed out that one account in folklore describes the Solomonari as disciples of the weather-controlling ways of Solomon. Additionally, some assimilation might have occurred with Salamanca, Spain, the famed city of learning, with medieval stories of a sorcery taught by the devil located in the . History of the Germanized form Scholomance has been suspected of not being a genuine Romanian term, but rather a misnomer, created through the corrupted Germanization of "Solomonari", the term for the students and not the school. Such a view was given by Elizabeth Miller, a scholar specializing in Dracula studies. A mistaken idea that "Scholomance" was a neologism first reported in 1885 by Emily Gerard was at one time current in English-speaking circles. The terms "Scholomance" and "Scholomonariu" appear in the Austrian journal Österreichische Revue in 1865. In literature Bram Stoker, who studied Gerard's work extensively, refers to it twice in Dracula, once in chapter 18: The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. And in chapter 23: He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Stoker's