ASPECTS OF TIME IN ROMANIAN POPULAR MENTALITY
ASPECTS OF TIME IN ROMANIAN POPULAR MENTALITY

Summary/Abstract: In the Romanian imagination, the entirety of the Universe participates at the birth and death of man - when the star of life rises or falls. Starting with the first blink of life, human existence assigns itself to a mythical time. The future of the child is not only connected to the blessings of the Fairy Godmothers but also to the time of birth, which is also fated. The human is predestined for a certain existence depending on when his/her "time comes"1 to be born, and also depending on the day, the month, the year and if it's during daylight or nigh-time. After dusk, the villager would turn to shadows and fireflies for guidance; at night they would listen after the sounds made by domestic or wild animals and the flight of bats and moths, while the chirping or humming of birds and the crowing of roosters marked the coming of dawn. Whether these signs were real or imagined, from dawn until dusk and then until midnight, the compartmentalization of time has amassed a complex set of magical-mythical practices and beliefs that rhythmize the passage rites of the being with those of the calendar. This article aims to present the hypostases of time in the Romanian popular tradition as a spiritual synthesis of ancestral origin. Divinities, hieroglyphic beings, magical practices, holidays, traditions and symbols that animate human existence and pace its experience, are part of a popular Calendar where time plays a central role because, as stated by Romulus Vulcănescu (1987, pp. 437 - 438), Romanians measure mythical time in close relation to that of mythical space.

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