BIBLICAL AND CHRISTIAN CHARACTERS IN ROMANIAN FOLKLORE OR ABOUT THE ETIOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS STORIES AND LEGENDS
BIBLICAL AND CHRISTIAN CHARACTERS IN ROMANIAN FOLKLORE OR ABOUT THE ETIOLOGY OF RELIGIOUS STORIES AND LEGENDS

Summary/Abstract: Superstitions were a way of life for the common man, and the idea that he could not control the evil divinities, but could deceive them, was a particular form of governing his life. The attempt to anthropomorphize the sacred is omnipresent in the Romanian village, and the graphic representations of God the Father, in the form of a vigorous old man, a representation also found in Christian iconography, was a way of making the divinity intelligible. There is, in the Romanian village, a remarkable ease of "transition" of saints from the Christian spectrum to that of folk tales. Thus, the stories and legends are no longer "imprisoned" by the rigid and traditionalist dogma of the Church, and the characters are left to "fly" on earth in a multitude of gestures and deeds. Obviously rural Christianity, because this is what we are talking about, is still imbued with customs and traditions that are not only on the verge of dogma, but also clearly enter the pre-Christian spectrum. The characters of the Old and New Testaments thus become the main characters of religious stories.

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