Falling Sickness, Descending Wolf: Some Notes on Popular Etymology, Symptomatology, and 'Predicate Synonymy' In Western Balkan Slavic Folk Tradition (original) (raw)
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Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, 2012
The line between Orthodox Christianity and pagan/folk customs and beliefs in the fifteenth century Slavia Orthodoxa was not precisely drawn. The population called upon spiritual forces of all kinds, to heal illnesses and injuries. Though the official position of the Orthodox Christian Church was to condemn and suppress these pre-Christian beliefs, certain elements such as magical words were included in Church-sanctioned texts. The fifteenth-century South Slavic trebnik (Hilandar HM.SMS.378) is one example of such a text. In addition to its canonical material, it contains a healing rite for a snakebite, which blends Orthodox Christian elements and pre-Christian ones, utilizing magical words. In this article, I examine Hilandar HM.SMS.378-the magical words, the symbolism, and the cultural background-and compare it with two similar rites from a medieval South Slavic lječebnik ('book of healing') transcribed by V. Jagić in 1878. I also discuss the possibility that the three rites share a common origin.
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The research is devoted to studying the Folk Medicine concept in English based on British ethnographic and folklore materials, as well as dictionaries of dialects published in the XIX and early XX centuries. The work aims to analyse the Folk Medicine concept and its representation as a component of the folk world picture, verbalised in that time’s medical language, the core of which is a set of folk nominations used to denote folk names of diseases associated with ancient medical practices. On the periphery, folk texts represent superstitions as necessary constituents of folk medical practices connected with the mentioned nominal units. A comprehensive methodology of conceptual analysis allowed identifying the basic ideas about Folk Medicine. Based on the statement that the meaningful component of the Folk Medicine concept is realised in the folk consciousness, the key verbalised nominations’ definitions denoting the disease names, and their compatibility with adjectives and verbs, ...
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In the article, the author discusses the relationship that refers to people and illness that is recorded in various language data. Based on folk material, the author recalls, above all, folk magic formulas, called "orders". The magical healing ritual is perceived as a whole, in which the word accompanies certain activities taking place at a given time and place, using specific attributes. In a very specific existential situation, which is illness, the most basic mechanisms of thinking about the reality are revealed. Hence, the healing ritual reveals perceptions and judgements referring to illness, based on one's own body experiences. These judgements can be observed through specific materialization obtained through the language/text manifested in a specific executive situation. The analysis of linguistic/text data allows one to discover the significance of performed actions in the process of magical healing, as these actions complement the word. They are also strongly associated with beliefs about illness in general and they constitute a characteristic testimony of human struggle with illness.
The Wolf: Human/Non-Human Relations on the Basis of Etiologies and Verbal Communication
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Images of werewolves in Belarusian oral tradition
The work was presented at the "FOLK NARRATIVE IN REGIONS OF INTENSIVE CULTURAL EXCHANGE" conference in Interim Conference of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research (ISFNR) 2018 Ragusa, Italy, June 12-16, 2018 Mythologem shapeshift-human turning into an animal (bird, plant, object, etc.) is the most developed in the Belarusian tradition motif represented in wolf/werewolves transformation / shifter. And some motives have parallels in the Belarusian traditional interpretation of dreams: to see the wolf is prognostic of the coming guests, matchmakers, wedding. The most popular nominations of werewolf fixed by the Belarusian folklore-ethnolinguistic atlas (hereinafter BFELA) are (volkolak volkolaka, vovkolaka, vavkulak, avkalaka and under.), at least-a vauchar, voukun (vavkun), even less fixations of type known as volkolatniki, voukulay. A separate group of verbal nominations is formed on the basis of motive transformation: piarevaratsen, vyvoroten, obaratsen, vyvyritsin, peravertsen, perakrutsen. As a characteristic of avoidant person, it was found determining the metaphorical nature of the type of vaukavaty and vavkachecha. Analysis of BFELA records about werewolves (about 324 records from 203 villages) shows that mythologem werewolve (Bel. vaukalak) is considered by the locals, on the one hand, in the meaning of mythical creatures (human-werewolf, evil spirit); on the other-as the metaphorical name (people with definition of quality and features, wolves / dogs). Fig. 1 Werewolves are mythical creatures
Possibly Oriental elements in Slavonic folklore. Kłobuk
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