A calendar explanation of the folk tale plot as a fragment of the anthropomorphic description of the annual cycle is proposed.
The tale covers any vivid episode of the hero's life, according to which it is difficult to form an idea of him in full. Just as the icon illustrates an important sacred moment in the Gospel story. Like a frozen moment.
Here, for example, is an image of a meeting. What is its plot? Art critics will begin a lengthy story about what someone brought someone somewhere, and what happened, and what words were spoken, and how it all ended. Typically fabulous storytelling. And its essence is expressed in two words - recognition of the deity. What does B. V. Rauschenbach. A fairy tale is also a plot of a fragment. The beginning and the end of which are equally unknown - "Once upon a time" and "They began to live and live."
Like the gospel narrative, broken up into a series of vivid fragments, each of which is insufficient to restore the entire life plot, the mythological narrative is probably also broken up into a number of private plots represented by such tales.
For example, Baba Yaga. She is always an old woman with details of descriptions of senile illnesses or losses, and without any sympathy, but on the contrary with a kind of gloating. Why? Why would no one ever sympathize with her? Except for me, of course. Oh yes, she's a negative character. Preparing for some reason to finish off (and even, oh horror, eat! - but this is just a typical black PR) for some reason wandered to her Ivashka. Perhaps fearful lest he would finish her off. Which, by the way, is not at all her empty invention. Since the tale has a happy ending, it consists precisely in the fact that this very Ivashka finished her off.
Wow plotter. Quite simply, a good fellow wandered into someone uninvited, talked about this and that, after which he took, and fried the owner. Referring to the fact that he seemed to be going to fry it himself. At the same time, Sherlock Holmes is presented with a silent corpse, which, alas, can no longer either confirm the statement of the said Ivashka or deny it. The plot is strange.
We are talking about a very real murder. And why do we need to root for Ivashka, and not for Yaga herself? What is it about it, except, of course, aesthetics? By the way, what was she like before, when the teeth were in place and the legs were not bone, and the hair was not gray?
And what was her name then? So is Yaga? Or maybe something else? After all, even in childhood we were called that way, in an adult state it was already different, in old years again in a different way. Why, for example, are schoolchildren called by their last names? And adults - by name and patronymic? The answer is that a student is not yet considered self-sufficient, he is always someone's - Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov. And an adult, on the contrary, is self-sufficient - he is already Ivan Ivanovich by himself or Andrei Sidorovich there. And here, addressing by last name is perceived as disrespect.
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And in fairy tales, there is a female character who is not so advanced in years? Presumably the same Yaga, but not yet a woman's age.
You can recall the pale Snow Maiden, afraid of fire and sunlight; scarlet Alyonushka the color of a flaring morning dawn; fiery Agni, although it is believed, perhaps out of ignorance, the masculine deity of fire; and finally the burnt out and extinct Yaga. Which the kind Ivanushka is strongly pushing to leave (push the falling one!). Well, how is this one and the same mythological character at different stages of existence?
Maybe the pale Snow Maiden symbolizes winter and night, scarlet Alyonushka - spring and morning, fiery Agni - summer in the heat of the day, and finally the black or ash Yaga - autumn and evening?
And what about Ivanushka, was he always a good fellow? It is recalled that sister Alyonushka also had a brother, Ivanushka, still very young, who had not reached the state of good fellowship. But for some reason this is also a story about death, although this time Ivanushka is already dying, and his kind sister Alyonushka sheds bitter tears about him. Isn't the choice of plot for a children's fairy tale strange?
Let's go further. There is also a fabulous grandfather, symmetrical to a fabulous woman. What is his nickname? - Frost! An interesting symmetry arises. Baba is fiery, and grandfather is frosty. Well, how is this grandfather the same former Ivanushka, but also in old age?
How can you make such a strange pair now? They are not just acquaintances, but it seems they are also relatives. Definitely not husband and wife, because each time they meet, their age difference is deliberately emphasized. Besides, they can't get along together. Their contact, always short-term and conflicting, certainly ends with the death of one of them. Moreover, we even know which one - usually the older one, who has already outlived his own.
This can be confused in the Alyonushka-Ivanushka variant, which also emphasizes age inequality. Moreover, Alyonushka is the eldest, all the time warning the younger, still unintelligent - do not do this, do not touch it, but he still does it out of misunderstanding. But this is no longer a grandfather in conflict with Alyonushka, but rather his young son or grandson.
The age inequality is clearly represented in the version of Ivanushka and Baba Yaga, who, if you think about it, may not turn out to be anyone, but precisely his grandmother. Moreover, a daughter or a granddaughter can live with her, not inclined or not yet having the strength to conflict with Ivanushka. Her conflict lies ahead when she grows up and Ivan himself grows old.
In the version of Santa Claus, he is accompanied by a young Snow Maiden and also the story is about the death of one of the characters.
Now it is spoiled by invented traditions, where both characters walk arm in arm, giving gifts to children, not even thinking that one of them is going to die, and from the other.
But the true story, apparently, is mirror-symmetrical to the story of "good" Ivashka and "bad" Baba Yaga.
But only here, instead of the kind and ruddy Santa Claus, you need to see the old, evil and ugly Snowman with a leaky bucket on his head and a stuck carrot instead of a nose. The one that parents and their children are happy to mold.
In such a refinement, the true story of Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden becomes clear. It is not she who is melting at all, but it is he who wants to prolong his existence - trying to freeze her. Just like Baba Yaga tried to burn Ivanushka before. And in exactly the same way, his strength is no longer enough for this, and vice versa, he himself melts, just as Yaga herself used to burn. In other words, in the first story, Ivanushka did not burn at all, but froze the Yaga, and in the second, the Snow Maiden did not freeze, but melted the Snowman - Santa Claus.
In total, we have before us a mythological story about the ANNUAL CYCLE. In a metaphorical form, explaining the reasons for the change of its seasons. With the help of anthropomorphic characters, possibly acting out some kind of mysteries. From which only fragments have come down to us in the form of supposedly children's fairy tales, often with a loss of the logic of the narrative.
What is actually narrated when these mythological characters meet? About life and death in a cyclical cycle.
The entire annual cycle is divided into two parts, in each of which only one character reigns, and the other dies, although not completely. One personifies warmth and life, the other cold and death. It is represented by male and female characters. The female character is fruitful, he personifies light, warmth, day, summer and life. Male is sterile and symbolizes darkness, cold, night, winter and death.
That is why Baba Yaga dominates all forest living creatures, being the mistress of everything except Ivanushka. But in this old age, she loses her fruitfulness and therefore must die. And the living creatures, hitherto submissive, immediately cheat on it …
This is the goddess of life Makosh in old age, who has lost fertility and turned into Mara.
Both beginnings periodically "defeat" each other, alternately replacing their dominion.
AND I. Propp tried to decipher the plot of this tale by means of the idea of initiating a hero who is supposedly going through a test.
The idea, apparently, is not his own, but borrowed from James Fraser, who describes it in relation to “savages”. The term "savages" means that the author does not identify himself with the objects of description, which means that he understands their logic very superficially, just as a kind of exoticism. But what is initiation? Routine tests are similar to the final examinations for the Maturity Certificate. The only difference is that our final exams are a mere formality. Determining neither the physical nor the mental fitness of the candidate for anything. You just need to repeat some texts and rules with a sin in half, regardless of their understanding and all the cases.
And the "initiation of savages" is another matter. There, first of all, the most important ability - physical survival - is tested. The ability to withstand any pain, ordeals of mortal horror. Including the horror of death. For this, his almost real death and return to the world of the living are imitated.
That is why the story of Ivanushka's meeting with Baba Yaga is not at all and cannot be an initiation rite, since it is not about imitation of death, but about real murder, decided in a duel of who will fight.
Moreover, Baba Yaga is not at all the initiator of the collision. She may even try to avoid him, trying to appease him or bribe him with gifts (according to A. Ya. Propp, Baba Yaga is the giver). Here we are talking about an obvious attempt to buy off him in advance, avoiding a direct collision, which she obviously fears.
A few words about the hero's field. Since this part of the sacred myth has been turned into a fairy tale told to children, the gender of the hero chosen by the storyteller is determined by her listener. If this is a grandson, then the gender and even the name of the hero corresponds to this boy, but if it is a granddaughter, then the hero turns into a girl who collides with the same Yaga. At the same time, the hero's victory is also modified. The boy, of course, heroically defeats her and even easily kills her, and the girl just runs away from her. Sometimes it gets confused and the boy runs away too.
The pair Baba Yaga - Ivanushka corresponds to the autumn equinox. Symmetrical pair Snowman Santa Claus - Snow Maiden - to the spring equinox.
Perhaps the best thing about this is from F. I. Tyutchev:
Winter is not without reason angry
Its time has passed -
Spring is knocking on the window
And drives them out of the yard.
And everything was in a fuss
Everything is boring Winter out -
And the larks in the sky
Already raised the bell.
Winter is still busy
And grumbles at Spring.
She laughs in her eyes
And it only makes more noise …
The wicked witch went mad
And, capturing the snow, Let go, running away
Into a beautiful child.
Spring and grief is not enough:
I washed myself in the snow
And only became blush
Contrary to the enemy.
And who is this beautiful child? And who is this angry witch witch?
The answer is this. The first is the former Snow Maiden-Snowdrop, which has already turned into a ruddy Alyonushka like a scarlet dawn. She is both morning and spring. And winter is none other than the former Ivanushka, who has now turned into an ugly, angry grumbling Snowman - Santa Claus. Now, of course, there has been a calendar shift, when the time of Frost as a grandfather is artificially attributed to the age of his heyday - the time of the middle of winter, while the true time of getting stuck and leaving is just spring. Specifically, the vernal equinox is the conditional date of the transition of the average daily temperature from minus to plus. And what is this time called? - March. In Latin - Mars, in Russian it is just frost! Moreover, it is Santa Claus, i.e. at the age of dying or leaving.
Here, in verse form, an almost ready-made plot of a folk tale is presented. And here's another Apollo Maikov:
Go away, Winter is gray!
Already beauties of Spring
Golden chariot
Rushing from the heights above!
Whether old to argue, frail, With her - the queen of flowers, With a whole army of air
Fragrant breezes!
And what is the noise, what is the buzz, Warm showers and rays
And chilikaniya, and singing!..
Leave yourself soon!
She has no bow, no arrows, I only smiled - and you
Having picked up his white shroud, Crawled into the ravine, into the bushes!..
May they find it in the ravines!
Look - the swarms of bees are noisy, And flies the victory flag
Motley butterflies squad!
Also an almost ready-made anthropomorphic description - winter is "gray", spring is "beauty", etc.
We will now replace the word winter with the word frost, and spring with the former Snow Maiden, now transformed into Alyonushka, and the whole plot becomes quite clear. It is simply mirror-symmetrical to the story of the clash between Ivanushka and Baba Yaga. There Baba Yaga tried to melt the coming cold with her own heat, but it turns out to be insufficient and in the end she herself burns out and everything freezes. Now it regains the power of fire, winter is trying to freeze it, but the forces of Frost are no longer the same, and he himself eventually melts.
Moreover, in both cases, all the forces of nature, represented by animate and inanimate characters, are on the side of the winner.
Author: A. I. SOMSIKOV