Reflexes of Ancient Ideas about Divine Twins in the Images of Saints George and Nicholas in Belarusian Folklore
Reflexes of Ancient Ideas about Divine Twins in the Images of Saints George and Nicholas in Belarusian Folklore

Summary/Abstract: As the images of Saint George and Saint Nicholas in Belarusian folklore converged, forming a non-canonical pairing, they assimilated a number of features indicative of an earlier tradition of divine twins’ veneration. Specifically, the paper focuses on the following features: 1) the possible traces of the devatādvandva grammatical form and the dual number; 2) a special attitude towards horses; 3) Saints George and Nicholas accompanying (in the capacity of charioteers) a female deity or a mythological creature (Blessed Mother, Aurora); 4) Saints George and Nicholas accompanying a character who inherits the Thunderer’s features (Saint Elijah, Saint Michael the Archangel); 5) systematic differences within a pair when one of the members is portrayed as a young man (Saint George) and the other one as an old man (Saint Nicholas); 6) the duplication of a single saint’s image; 7) narratives of twin healers, one of whom functions as a surgeon and the other one as a thaumaturge.

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