CODES OF SLAV CULTURES
journal of slavic folkloristics and ethno-lingvistics

No. 1

PLANTS 

The most general conception about plants, which determined their position in the world model, can be defined as follows: plants incarnate stability and change, places of connection and separation of the human and non-human worlds. The plants are the parts of nature considered as a closest connection between a human being, on one side, and gods or demons, on other. Respect of the so called sacred trees can be the principle motif for temple origin. The plants evidently concretize man's world outlook as of three parts consisted totality. Vegetal period succession of deciduous trees shows rhythm and regularity of the world change, which is an adequate way to express the regularity of the time course. Leaves' growing, blooming, ripening, "dying" and seed germinating, state the idea of a circle time, with endlessly repeated creation - growth - dying - resurrection process.

All the plants can be divided into three main groups according to their space location: high (trees), low (bushes, grass, mushrooms) and middle (climbers, creepers). This division was made by analogy to a tree - an entity consisting of three parts, and connected with the conception of the world consisting of three parts.

There is a possibility of establishing a plant's disposition on a horizontal basis according to symbolic status attributed, similarly to the disposition of animals. The fruitful trees (fruits) get best evaluation, they are located closest to the human being what can be compared with the status of cattle. In certain regions there is evidence of not using a fruit trees in fireplaces, baking a bread for them, or ritual inviting for dinner on the New Years Eve; belief that fruit trees can be bewitched, also existed. According to the close/far opposition, fructiferous trees are distributed in the following line: apple, as closest to man, on the edge of "social" and "wild" space - walnut, pear, hazel tree, dogwood, cherry, sour cherry, etc. are located.

Of special concern to magic act exhibitions are plants containing some of the following traces: thorns (rose hip, hawthorn, thorn), strong taste (garlic), red or black color; plants collected at a specific time (St. George's Day, St. John's Day, days between the Assumption and Nativity of the Virgin Mary) or at specific places (by spring, from foreign district), crooked, hollow, bushy by shape. There is belief that certain plants have specific magic qualities. Such are: sermountain, eryngo, four-leaf clover, black night-shade, tormentil, etc.

The plants that can be transferred from one condition to another - from temporary into permanent - have specific symbolic meanings. Such are grapevine (each year grapevine is trimmed and new sprouts appear, grape is turned into wine), flax and hemp (they die as plants and turn into fiber for weaving canvas). They concretize the relation life - death - new birth and are suitable mediators in the communication with the after death world.

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