Bik u sistemu folklornog mišljenja
The Bull in the System of Folklore Thinking

Summary/Abstract: Serbian oral folklore inherited a wide range of divergent and complex symbolic meanings in relation to the bull in mythical narratives of Indo-European and North African basins. Depending on genre norms and ritual practices, their different potentials were emphasized – connection with the solar cult and time (day / night); divinization, with ambivalent reflexes in Christmas rituals (“položajnik” – the first person or animal that enters the house on Christmas Day) and sacrificial practices; presence in “meteorological” narratives related to calamities (an ox called “oblačar” – one who could control the clouds) and a connection with terrestrial, usually chthonic waters (legends about the water bull); a connection with the cult of fertility (cornucopia / the horn of plenty, with reflexes in fairy tales); the role in conceptualization and spatial model of the world (the cosmophorus bull); the motive of riding an ox, whose archaic origins could be traced back to ancient rituals in the broad territory from the Mediterranean to India, with remains present in epic poetry.

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