Corruption and confrontation of the plague in folklore: beliefs, superstitions and magical practices (ethnocultural aspects)

Abstract

In Romanian folklore, the personified Plague has the image of an evil creature that devours people without mercy, eating them literally. The demonic face of the plague, with its skeletal appearance in iconographic art, comes to feed the phobias of people, frightened by the fatal weapons of the plague: sword, scythe or sickle. Two diametrically opposed perceptions of the impact of the Plague on people's lives persist in folklore sources. According to the first, the plague is relentless and devastating, killing people despite their attempts to corrupt it through generous gifts. The second perception, however, offers a ray of hope to people by applying remedies of magical medicine and by facing the plague based on ingenious actions, undertaken by simple and extremely resourceful people. And if in the case of the first perception a state of mind marked by fatalism and despair predominates, then in the case of the second, the prospects of facing the Plague are optimistic and life-giving. The dialogues of the central heroes with the Plague from which both phobias and multiple prejudices and superstitions of people emerge are quasi important in folklore sources. However, the plague is fooled by a shepherd who knows some effective health measures to eradicate the disease. The method of the heroine from the legend of “The Sun and the Swallow” proves to be just as effective when the Plague literally cracked the enormous amount of milk she drank.