German

No narrated mythic genealogy is preserved in the recorded sources. Ethnographic accounts present German as a vegetation/seasonal spirit whose ritual death and subsequent revival are understood to ensure the regeneration of nature and the coming of rain; scholars interpreting the rite suggest the effigy may be a metaphorical replacement of an earlier human-sacrifice schema.

German is known in the ethnographic record chiefly via a ritual effigy or doll made of rags, fired clay, or dried fruits, often rather large and explicitly marked with male genitals. Northern Bulgarian accounts record dolls about 20–50 cm long, sometimes laid on a slate, adorned with flowers, placed in a little coffin, and buried with funeral observances. No consistent independent anthropomorphic depiction outside these ritual representations is attested in the sources.

In local belief German is credited with influence over precipitation—bringing beneficial rain or destructive hail and, by extension, affecting agricultural fertility. Ritual acts (making, burying, floating, or digging up the effigy) are presented in sources as the community's means to cause rain, stop drought, or otherwise negotiate his favor or the weather; in Christianized contexts he is identified with Saint Germanus, who is locally invoked for protection from hail (and sometimes lightning).