engleski

Through Animalistic and Mythological Connections from Epona to St Martin

The culturo-anthropological diversity of the tradition of St Martin is considered in this paper. The living folklore customs associated with the saint allow us to speak of the Martinian myth as an essential component of Christian mythology based on the mnemonic traces of the myths of the Celts and of Antiquity. The starting-point of the study are two different aspects based on two different iconographic portrayals of the Early Christian saint, which are linked in the ideological and symbolic sense through their very diversity. I will refer especially to the Bacchic orientations of the Martinian myth. There we will seek for adequate mythological connections which, through their four traditional functions: narrative, initiatic, etiological, and ritualistic support the mythological awareness in which the speech of civilisation is inscribed into time and space.

Epona; myth; iconography; homo animalis; horse; St Martin; goose

Prvotna verzija ove studije u obliku referata prezentirana je 2007. na međunarodnom znanstvenom skupu "Mythes à la cour, mythes pour la cour /Courtly Mythologies", Lausanne–Genève (29.7.–4.8.) pod naslovom "Les bacchanales populaires:ambiance courtoise dionysiaque de la fête de la saint Martin (la tradition croate du «baptême du vin»)". Pisana verzija iste studije tiskana je 2010. u knjizi "Mitski zbornik (ur. Suzana Marjanić i Ines Prica) pod naslovom "Mitološki prepleti. Od Epone do Martina, od Samaina do Martinja". Posljednja engleska verzija dodatno razrađuje animalistički aspekt iste teme.