Place In Mythology Research Articles

Kovoje su Giltinės palydovėmis

Folklorists who analyse mythic creatures, empha size the category of "desease". In this article we meet the plague goddesses and cholera and the ways of overcoming them. The problem is that the real desease (from the point of view of medicine), which ravages the country (historic and geographic realia), turns to the mythic creature and people try to overcome it with actions, ritual by their nature (mythic way of thinking). The purpose of this work is to try clarify the character of the actions. Although the notion of the plague goddesses and cholera in the Lithuanian mythological narratives emerges only in the late XVIII century, it's origins reach far beyond. To some opinion it belongs to the higher cathegory of dieties, or to the lower, or it could possibly reach the age of Mother Goddess. Creatures spreading the plague and other deseases exist in mythologies of various nations. The func tion is usually fulfilled either by the highest diety of the pantheon or by some special god of plague, or it could as well be done by a particular mythical creature that possesses among others the experi ence of spreading the epidemic. Since the question of the origins of Lithuanian plague creatures re mains unanswered, one can not define their place in mythology either. In narratives mythical creatures of the plague and cholera usually appeare as female, though they can be male or foreign. They are named by the deseases they spread or their real name remains unpronounced, as to avoid the danger. Lithuanian plague goddesses and cholera take anthropomor phic shapes of a young woman walking, or of a haughty lady in her coach or of a woman ridding on horseback. There are several ways how they man age to overcome the people: screaming under the window, cracking a whip, grasping the nose or sim ply "dropping in", the latter being the most popular as it defines the very nature of how an epidemic spreads. The ways of overcoming the plague goddesses and cholera are simple (implying the types of: 1) misleading or deception, and 2) a favour or persua sion) and ritual by its nature (the types of: 3) pre caution, 4) the activities of twins, 5) pleading (mak ing the dieties relent)). The types include the pat tern of fire, and should be concidered the most effective means for overcoming the goddesses of desease and the epidemic itself (it corresponds with medical knowledge also: dead bodies of the plague - infected people have to be cremated). Each cataclysm, causing a high degree of mortal ity, is treated not just as an actual fact, but also acquires a mystic-transcendental shape in the hu man conciousnes. Since the events have no rational explanation, they are attributed to the activities of some particular dieties. The idea does not imply however a possive attitude towards the disaster: for the whole community comes down upon the myth ical creature, united for ritual victory

Twins in myth (author's transl)

Twins have an important place in mythology and a sacred character appears to be attached to them since the most ancient times. In ancient Egypt, the royal placenta was worshipped, being considered as the Pharao's twin (a conception that is still alive among certain African populations), and actually everyone was considered to possess a spiritual twin, the Ka or astral body, through whom it was supposed to be possible to operate with magic rituals and hit enemies. Twin gods were worshipped by Babylonians and Assyrians (who even introduced them among astronomic constellations), and may be also found in the Persian and Veda religions. In the classic, Greco-Roman world, the examples of twin gods and heroes are innumerable: from the twin sons of Zeus, the Dioscuri, to the opposite-sexed twin gods Apollo and Diana, to Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus, etc. Since the most ancient times, a magic conception is connected to the twins, either in a positive or a negative sense, but often with some kind of a "fatidic" aspect. Such a two-faced approach to the phenomenon of twinning, that variously characterizes near-east, protomediterranean, classic, and other ancient civilizations, may still be found in contemporary primitive societies.