The Role of Legend in Constructing Annual Cycle
The Role of Legend in Constructing Annual Cycle

Summary/Abstract: The paper is based on the folklore tradition of a mythical being, the Master of the Wolves, whose chief function was commanding or dividing up food among the wolves. He appears in many Slavic and other European legends, and some Southern Slavs also celebrate the so-called “wolf holidays”; a being with the same function appears also in incantations against wolves. It turned out that the incantations are usually connected with the first days of pasturing in the spring and the beginning of summer, while the legends refer to the last days of pasturing in the autumn and the beginning of winter. The legends and incantations as well as the beliefs and customs clearly indicate the remains of a tradition, the intention of which was to explain and to support the changing of time, the binary opposition of winter and summer, as it pertained to the annual cycle of Slavic stockbreeders.

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