In some parts of BiH a house snake is called blazna. Even though she will never harm any of the inhabitants of the household and in case it was seen inside the house it was chased outside with the help of smoke, usually one would burn an old rag or something else which will create a lot of smoke and that would make it leave the house. In Ljubinje if they find a snake inside a house they will not kill it, they will chase it out with smoke. In Mostar they say that a house snake shouldn't be killed but chased away with smoke or it should be caught in a gap, and bring it far away from home and release it uttering: "My Blazna, Blazna, you will protect my house from here"
In Mostar it is believed that the one that kills a house snake will die or that the householder of that snake will die. People from Mostar talk of a Glavaš who killed a blazna, and that he died the same year and that the house was destroyed in a couple of years.
Among the Bosnian people it was once believed that a snake can enter a human through his mouth and live in his stomach. That would usually happen when a man would fall asleep outside, on a meadow or in the forest, and at that moment carelessness the snake would enter his body through his mouth. According to belief, inside the stomach the snake would eat everything that the human eats or drinks and that's why he was skinny and pale. In order to expel the snake from his body the following methods were undertaken; milk would be cooked and the sick man would open his mouth wide above the bowl of milk so the snake can smell the milk and exit the body. Or one would place a grilled chicken next to a sleeping man, in order to entice the snake out by the smell of the chicken.
In the same way, the people believe that a snake has the power to blow inside a human or animal, i.e. to use its breath to fill out a human or animal body in such a manner as to seriously endanger its health. Each case that occurs during summer, when a cow would get bloated, is considered a snake intervention i.e. that it blew inside the animal. It is interesting to compare this belief with the legend of the dragon which tries to attack the rising sun every morning but it is prevented to do so, and as revenge it blows towards the sun and, according to folk belief, a wind is created which spreads across the entire world.
At the end we should also mention another belief about snakes which claims that each cow has its snake, which is its guardian and which feeds itself with the cow's milk. The owner of cattle shouldn't kill that snake, if he does his cow or calf will die. Snake as the guardian of humans and cows and the snake which enters the human body directly is connected to the mythological belief of Bosnian people about snijet - a dragon baby, which can only be borne by a woman or a cow.
