Персонифицированные лихорадки в восточно-славянских народных представлениях (на материале заговоров)
PERSONIFICATIONS OF FEVER IN EAST-SLAVONIC MAGIC SPELLS

Summary/Abstract: One of the characteristic features of East-Slavonic cultures are personifications of diseases, referred to by proper names. An example of such anthropomorphism is an image of smallpox as an old woman with sparkling eyes and one firm, healthy tooth.The article offers a characterization of folk representations of fever (the folk names being zimnica lit. ‘the cold disease’, trzęsawica lit. ‘the shaking disease’). The characterization is a complex of eight basic categorial features: appearance, attributes, the relationship of people to the disease and vice versa, the influence of the disease on a person, the casues and origin of the disease, its duration and location in the human organism. The richest category is that of the influence of fever on people: it can strangle, squash, bite, burn, break someone’s bones, pull or torment someone, etc.

• Details
• Contents