Chuvash dragon (Verechelen / Vĕreśĕlen)

The corpus of available legends situates these beings in the Volga-Region mythic landscape and links them to narratives of Volga Bulgaria. One founding legend reports that when the Bulgars came to found the town of Bilär they discovered a very large snake and, when they decided to kill it, the snake begged for peace and asked Allah to give it wings; after receiving wings it flew away (Wikipedia summary). Another account places a dragon at a pagan tower temple at Alabuğa and states that a being of this type allegedly persisted there until the time of Tamerlane's invasion (Wikipedia summary). Medieval traveler Ibn Fadlan's 10th-century observations of numerous snakes on trees in Volga Bulgaria — including an exceptionally large specimen on a fallen trunk — are cited in the secondary literature as part of the historical milieu that these legends reflect, with local Bulgars reportedly assuring Ibn Fadlan that such large snakes were not dangerous (Wikipedia summary).

Primary descriptions emphasize a large serpentine (snake-like) form; some name-forms literally gloss as 'invisible snake' while a variant name is glossed as 'fire snake' (Wikipedia). Many accounts add avian features: the creature is described as winged or able to fly (one tale explicitly narrates the snake receiving wings). It is fire-associated — said to breathe fire and to leave a fiery wake when flying. In some variants it is multi-headed, a feature compared in the sources to the Russian Gorynych. The tradition also places such snakes on or near trees and in local sacred or settlement sites (Bilär, a pagan tower at Alabuğa).

Sources record flight (winged), fire-breathing and leaving a 'fiery wake' when airborne, and shapeshifting. Multiple heads are reported in some tellings, increasing its threat-profile in those variants. Narrative material also depicts a capacity to petition a deity (a tale where the snake asks Allah for wings) and, in the geographical-historical testimony cited, suggests local human communities may treat such large serpents as part of the landscape rather than strictly as enemies (Ibn Fadlan account as summarized in the sources).