Open AccessPlots of Gothic Origin in Ukrainian Folklore Prose
Author(s) -
Mykhailo Rakhno
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
folklore
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.118
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1406-0957
pISSN - 1406-0949
DOI - 10.7592/fejf2022.85.rakhno
Subject(s) - folklore , legend , ukrainian , demise , literature , history , ancient history , plot (graphics) , bridge (graph theory) , art , philosophy , linguistics , statistics , mathematics , political science , law , medicine
The article deals with plot elements of Gothic origin present in Ukrainian folk legends and other prose works: people and cattle sinking into the earth, and witches’ curses. Those motifs can be traced back to the Migration Period when the Germanic tribes entered the Circum-Pontic region. Despite the significant time lapse, the relics of those times still remain in the European folklore in the form of certain plots or plot elements. A widespread legend about a person punished by God for tilling the earth at Easter is comparable to an accident with some Gothic troops crossing a bridge across the river in Jordanes’s Getica. The beliefs about the reasons of the Gothic empire’s downfall are to some extent similar to those about the Zaporizhian Sich’s demise.