The official version of the origin of the word "Hooligan" is as follows:
But in one book of the 19th century on folklore I came across an unprecedented name for a mummed crowd on Christmastide nights - Shulikany. And it turns out that the modern World Wide Web also knows this word:
And here is what the Mythological Dictionary writes about these "disguised" outlaws (chief editor E. M. Meletinsky. 1990):
Since the crowd of mummers, like the Christmas traditions in general, are among the most ancient and at the same time the most underestimated and misunderstood, it can be assumed that the Shulikans spread throughout Europe along with them, and then lost their origins. But the word remained and was associated with harmful, playful and evil creatures or those who portrayed them as people (and devils are a mandatory attribute of Christmastide evenings), so they came up with an explanation for us in the form of some Irish surname β¦
In Germanic folklore, a similar role is played by the so-called "Packs" (just like our "Dirty"), the most famous of which is Robin Goodfellow, mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary since 1531, who could change his appearance, punished bad people and rewarded the good, and whose image, according to some researchers, influenced the famous plot about the main bully of Sherwood Forest - Robin Hood.
The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism (2002), following Margaret Murray, considers Robin Goodfellow to be the earthly embodiment of the so-called medieval Witch God. But we have already written about the Russian "analogues" of the famous witches' Sabbaths. And this tradition, like the "Shulikans", refers to the Christmastide
Author: peremyshlin
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