Werwolf und Hochzeitsgeschehen im russischen und lettischen Volkslied
Werewolf and the wedding ceremonial in the Russian and Latvian folk songs

Summary/Abstract: In a Russian folk song from the famous collection of P. V. Kireevskij (ą 177) the seducer of young girls was a man who changed from a wolf to a human being. The werewolf takes part in the wedding ceremonial in a lot of Latvian folk songs. Vjač. Vs. Ivanov (XIV Meždunarodnyj súezd slavistov. Ochrid, 10-16 sent’abr’a 2008 g. Doklady rossijskoj delegacii, Moskva 2008, 249-275) reconstructs the designation of the werewolf in Balto-Slavic as a compound of the words for “wolf” and “bear” (*vilk- & *(t)lak-). I found out that the word combination of the so called Dvandva type Latv. folkl. vilki la-či is used in some folk songs as designation of werewolves in contexts connected with wedding ceremonials.

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