First, let's figure out the name of the main character itself. Kolobok - what is this word? It clearly recognizes the common Slavic root "kolo", which translates as "circle". Until now, in a number of Slavic languages, this word has been preserved in the meaning of a round dance. Yes, and in the Russian language there are many words into which the root "kolo" is soldered. For example, a bell, a brace, a wheel.
Here it is necessary to warn against the temptation to make a primitive decomposition of the word "kolobok" into two component parts - "colo" and "side", giving it the meaning of "round-sided". In fact, the suffix “b” was added to the root “kolo”, which resulted in “kolob” - a kind of round object. And the kolobok is a derivative of the kolobok.
There simply cannot be any root "side" here. To put it simply, the vowel in it would have a completely different origin and would not be fluent. It is possible to expand this thesis in detail, but then the whole article would be reduced to this. We advise you to get acquainted with the rules of the evolution of vowels in the Proto-Slavic and Old Russian languages, and all questions will disappear.
But back to the origin of the tale.
Let's say right away: the specialists do not have a 100% justified version. There is an assumption, expressed by some scientists, that the change of the phases of the moon is encrypted in the fairy tale. At first the gingerbread man is all round, then he meets a number of forest animals, each of which picks off a piece from him. And at the end it is eaten. And this corresponds to changes in the appearance of the moon - from full moon to new moon.
Another variation of the same version is the annual solar cycle. In this interpretation, Kolobok is identified with the Sun, and his path through the forest is the period between the summer solstice, when the day is longest, and the winter, when it is the shortest.
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The astronomical interpretation of the Kolobok fairy tale is very popular today. But not in science. We emphasize once again that for most scientists this is just a version that does not have proper justification.