PLANTE MIRACULOASE ÎN MENTALITATEA SOCIETĂȚII TRADIȚIONALE
MIRACULOUS PLANTS IN THE MENTALITY OF THE TRADITIONAL SOCIETY

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to highlight the impact of some miraculous plants upon the Romanian traditional mentality. Sometimes, by the simple presence, some plants have the ability to open any padlock (for example, Iarba fiarelor), other times they have the power to cast out evil creatures, in particular the Pixies, the Ghosts ( for example, Aiul, Avrămeasa, Iarba lui Tatin, Iarba luminii, Leușteanul, Odoleanul, Pelinul, Sita-Ielelor etc.). In the ontological universe of the traditional village, people rely on the empirical thinking. Depending on the ethnographic area of the country, we meet some regional names for one and the same plant. The scientific name of the plant is augmented by the popular name. The plants mentioned are ambivalent: beneficial to humans and animals (apotropaic, therapeutic function) and malefic for certain supernatural beings (Pixies, Ghosts). These plants are under the tutelage of the miracle due to the power they are invested with. Iarba fiarelor is a plant located at the boundary between real and unreal, instead Aiul, Avrămeasa, Iarba lui Tatin, Iarba luminii, Leușteanul, Odoleanul, Pelinul, Sita-Ielelor etc. are real plants that protect humans, animals from evil creatures from other worlds (Pixies, Ghosts). These plants must be picked up on certain feasts at certain moments of the day, and the beings seized by sickness can only be cured in days of sacred connotation. The miraculous plants have a taumaturgical role and become a point of contact between certain binaries: real-unreal, sacred-profane.

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