Plugarul şi suferinţa pământului. Exegeza unui motiv folcloric românesc
The Ploughman and the Pain of the Soil. The Exegesis of a Romanian Folkloric Motif

Summary/Abstract: According to Romanian folk beliefs, the soil suffers when the man ploughs it. After the first humans started ploughing up the soil, the soil shed blood and started to scream. To ease its pain, one recommends refraining from working at noon and at night, because the soil needs rest, alike humans. This folkloric motif gained several interpretations in Romanian ethnology. Specialists considered it, successively, as an expression of animism, a poetic image, a proof of deep respect for nature, an illustration of the sacred violence committed by the ploughman, etc. The motif of the pain of the soil has a special value nowadays when we are facing a serious ecological crisis. Traditional wisdom thus offers us an impulse to reflect and reconsider our behaviour towards the environment.

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