a fool by his two elder brothers, manages to pluck the golden hairs of a vila who has been eating the silver pears of his father's garden. He later takes her back to his father's house. In a second tale, The Vila in the Golden Castle, a father asks his three sons to guard his flower garden at night, because swans have been eating the flowers (in reality, the vilas were). The vila returns home to the golden castle, which prompts the youth to seek her. There, an old vila, the girl's mother, sets tasks for him to perform. References Further reading Hartland, E. Sidney. The science of fairy tales: An inquiry into fairy mythology. London: W. Scott. pp. 267, 312-313. Алещенко, Е. И. (2015). "Болгарские сказки о самовилах как отражение фольклорной картины мира" [Bulgarian fairy tales about samovilas as the reflection of the folklore world picture]. In: Известия Волгоградского государственного педагогического университета, (3 (98)), 177-183. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/bolgarskie-skazki-o-samovilah-kak-otrazhenie-folklornoy-kartiny-mira (дата обращения: 19.12.2021). Trefilova, Olga (2020). "Bulgarian Folk Demonology: A Brief Overview". In: Slavic World in the Third Millennium. 15. 169-170. DOI: 10.31168/2412-6446.2020.15.3-4.11. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/bolgarskaya-narodnaya-demonologiya-kratkiy-obzor (дата обращения: 19.12.2021). (In Russian) Bulgarian folklore Serbian folklore North Macedonia folklore Nav' Nature spirits Forest spirits Female legendary creatures