Середньополіські вірування про дощ

Abstract

The article analyzes traditional beliefs about rain in the spiritual culture of the Middle Polissia’s dialects of Zhytomyr region, summarizes the materials of modern linguistic studies about precipitation in the form of rain, makes a systematic description of the names associated with rain in the Middle Polissia’s dialects based on the analysis of a complete cultural text. The source of the reseach is own field records made in 43 central Pollissia’s dialects of Zhytomyr region. The results of the study confirm the preservation of ideas about rain, predicting the duration or short duration of rain for the period of the day when rain begins (in the morning, before lunch, after lunch, in the evening); fixing children's spells to rain. The texts of Polissia’s spells to rain differ in their characters: in some texts it is rain, pot, borscht, in other texts sparrows are added to the previous characters, in the third text of the spells we observe the imposition of pre-Christian beliefs in the magical power of rain on Christian motives of faith in God. Respodents often provides detailed comments on individual explanations about rain, which indicates an extreme interest in the process of observing precipitation.