FURTUL MERELOR DE AUR- DE LA IDUN LA SFÂNTA DUMINICĂ
IN SEARCH OF THE GOLDEN APPLE - FROM SFÂNTA DUMINICĂ TO IDUN

Summary/Abstract: The Golden Apple is a recurring theme in world cultures, be it mythology, tales or modern traditions. Stolen by Zmei, giants or magical birds, it is a symbol of immortality in Scandinavian mythology, an attribute of science, magic and revelation for the Celts. The Golden Apple is considered ”the world egg”, a symbol of origin, but it is also the forbidden fruit of temptation, sin and knowledge. The apple tree is, above all, a tree from the other world, requiring constant care and protection. The kings from Romanian tales crave their fruit, though the tree is in their own orchard. Like the Norse Gods that, in the absence of Idun, cannot reap the fruit of immortality. Perhaps the kings from the Romanian tale lack a mediator between the magical tree and this world. The heroes have to search for this liaison into the underground, the world of the Zmei/Giants (Prâslea the Brave and the Golden Apples, Petre Ispirescu), or into the sky, in the garden of Sfânta Duminică, where Mândra Lumii (The Fairest of the World) – hypostasis of the Saint – waits in her golden cradle (Bulimandră și Mândra Lumii, Simion Florea Marian).In an attempt to reconstruct a Romanian Pantheon, this paper will follow the footsteps of the keepers of immortality, embodied in the heroine of the Romanian tales. I will compare them with established Goddesses in other mythologies of the world, from the Garden of the Hesperides, to Sfânta Dumincă and Idun.With the belief that the tales are myths descended in the profane world, we credit them as the best keepers of a Pantheon of unnamed, local gods. DOI: 10.29302/InImag.2016.7.7

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