Сакральный образ «дерево-олень» в северорусской народной культуре

Abstract

The paper considers the hypothesis that the image of a “tree-deer”, imprinted in the Northern Russian folk culture, was formed on the basis of figurative and semantic identification of a deer / elk and a tree. The analysis of such analogies, traces of which are preserved in folklore and in Russian folk dialects, is carried out taking into account the peculiarities of pagan worldview. Due to the antiquity of the cult of these animals, which developed in the hunting period, its signs have to be searched not only among the few archaisms of Slavic culture that have come down to our days, but also among traditional cultures of the Northern peoples. The fact that these animals, like the “world tree”, were once cosmological symbols explains the origin of the figurative-semantic relationship between a deer / elk and a tree. This is what determines the interchangeability of the image of a deer / elk and the image of a tree observed in folklore. In this context, the Genesis of a number of homonyms and similar words that exist in the Russian dialect lexicon, united by a corresponding theme, also becomes comprehensible. Moreover, the author conducts analysis of a number of images of deer / elk found in Northern Russian decorative and applied art (on embroidery and wood carving) in the context of representations that existed in the Slavic magical protective practice. This allows for understanding why the “tree-deer” image was endowed with sacred properties.