Contribuții la studierea mitologiei după răspunsurile corespondenților maramureșeni la chestionarele lui Ion Mușlea

Abstract

Our research is focused on the answers of the correspondents from Maramureş to Ion Muşlea’s questionnaires, which provide us with information about two categories of mythological beings, some complex, and the second group of lesser importance. In our research, we reserved a wider space for complex mythological beings: the Forest Girl, around whom a real mythology was embroidered, the Night Man, the Marţolea, the Undead, the Werewolf. I have reproduced information, even being brief, related to the secondary mythological beings: the Fantastic Peoples, the Lunatic, the Merciful, the Death, the Plague, the Smeul, the Dragon. In our research, we gave importance to new and rare information, emphasizing their purpose to complete the mythological substratum of the beings represented in the answers of the correspondents. In our research, synthesizing the information, we first analyzed the beliefs about the origin of these evil beings, those that reflect the way they are imagined in the people, their characteristic features, evil actions and means of defense and confrontation. In order to render the mythological substratum of these demons as complex as possible, we have reproduced legends and stories, some of which arouse special interest. The study of this compartment of Maramureș mythology reveals to us a complex, archaic and synthetic universe of thought, in which myths, beliefs, superstitions, legends, the cult element of fire and hearth, water, earth, elements from nature, elements of popular cosmogony, of magic and sorcery.