Tickling in the Light of Slavic Vocabulary and Mythology (Polesian Data on a Common Slavic Background)

Abstract

The authors of this article attempt to reveal the symbolism of tickling as an aggressive behaviour of mythological characters using ethnolinguistic methods. This analysis is carried out on the basis of the study of Polesie dialectal vocabulary and phraseology related to this demonological function, with the involvement of a wide range of common Slavic linguistic data, and a significant body of folk mythological beliefs. The work includes three thematic sections: terminology and ways of nominating tickling in Slavic languages and dialects; tickling as a harmful function of evil spirits directed at a person; and tickling as an action of mythologized animals aimed at livestock. Geographically, the combination of the functions of tickling in a mermaid (rusalki) and a weasel can be observed in at least two regions – in Polesie and the Upper Volga. In the language and in traditional culture, there is a similarity in the ratio and interaction of tickling as a tactile action and acoustic “tickling” associated with various types of sounds emanating from living beings (people, animals, birds, and insects). In the language, a portion of onomatopoeic verb vocabulary is built in parallel to the words for tickling, which serve to convey the sounds of human speech, animal cries, sharp noises made by people, etc., which indicates a kind of mutual attraction between intense verb iterations related, on the one hand, to the tactile, and on the other, to the audible. In the folk tradition, the tickle motif creates a correlation between the strong physical irritation that mythological characters (demons and animals) inflict on people and livestock with their annoyingly repetitive actions, and the auditory perception of restless, often annoying, cries and sounds of animal origin,which are endowed with folklore and some demonological characteristics.