On Reconstructing the Mountain Mythonymy of the Urals: The Masters of Underground Treasures

Abstract

This article analyses the mountain mythonymy of the Urals, i.e. names for supernatural anthropomorphic beings that guard treasures of the earth (minerals and metals) and aid (or interfere with) their discovery, extraction, and carving. Russian mountain mythology has already been studied by folklorists, but the linguistic aspect is only unfolding now. The material referred to in the article was collected during the 2020–2023 expeditions and retrieved from dictionaries, folklore texts, and fiction. The article mainly draws on the mythology and mythonymy of the Urals (as well as some zones of Siberia). The paper analyses the core nominations in the sphere of “genii loci” — mythonyms хозяин (khoziain, lit. ‘master’) and хозяйка (khoziaika, lit. ‘mistress’). The authors note that the images of the owners of the mountains and earth treasures originate in peasant beliefs about the spirits of natural loci which could have been supported by the corresponding mythological images that existed among indigenous Uralic peoples. In the Middle Urals, a mountain spirit usually takes a female form. The article traces the genesis of this image and explains its feminine nature. The authors compare the following two mythonyms: хозяйка (khoziaika) from folk legends and Хозяйка Медной горы (Khoziaika Mednoi Gory, lit. ‘Mistress of the Copper Mountain’) from Bazhov’s tales. The authors note that the widespread appreciation of Bazhov’s tales stands in the way of determining the direction in which the mythonym migrated (from the author’s tale into folk speech or vice versa). Хозяйка (Khoziaika) is the most widespread mountain mythonym which is found in the Middle Urals vocabulary and phraseology associated with the extraction and carving of minerals: коса хозяйки (kosa khoziaiki, lit. ‘the mistress’s plait’), слезы хозяйки (slezy khoziaiki, lit. ‘the mistress’s tears’), мастер от хозяйки (master ot khoziaiki, lit. ‘craftsman from the mistress’, ‘craftsman inspired by the mistress’), камень хозяйки (kamen’ khoziaiki, lit. ‘the mistress’s stone’), хозяйка зеркало разбила (khoziaika zerkalo razbila, lit. ‘the mistress broke the mirror’), etc. The legends of the Southern Urals more often feature the image of a master (хозяин). This may be explained by the influence of Tatar and Bashkir culture.