Marțolea în folclorul maramureșean și românesc. Contribuții
Marţolea in Maramureș and Romanian Folklore. Contributions

Summary/Abstract: Our paper, based on the available published material, aims to remedy a void of ethnological research, Marțolea, although it is a complex mythological being well represented in our folklore, it is briefly researched till nowadays.In the first part we present the spreading of this mythological being in the Romanian space, to which we added the conception of the specialists on its mythological substrate. A more developed part of our investigation is about the beliefs and superstitions that generated and imposed the becoming taboo of Tuesday. Then we treated the character features of this evil spirit. We emphasized and gave importance to the phisiological details of Marțolea in order to outline its mythological substratum. We gave great importance in our paper to the evil features that Marțolea was supposed to use to punish the women and girls who spined on Tuesday. We analysed then in detail the forms and ways of defence used by women and girls who violated the ban against the evil actions of Marțolea.The final part is reserved to the interferences between Marțolea and other evil spirits, such as Fata Pădurii (Forest Girl), Diavolul (Devil) and Strigoiul (Ghost). Our paper ends with considerations about the place of this evil being in the Romanian mythology.

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