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Small Croatian Folk Prayers: Formulism and Metaphorics

On the examples of small prayers notated in Croatia in the 20th century, their formulism, possible written and oral sources and functions in everyday life are considered. Small prayers as an oral literary genre belong largely to orally transmitted texts in verse or to particular rhythmic speech, and they undoubtedly reflect the religious worldview of the narrator. Like faith, they are Man’s vital response to questions on the sense of life, a synchretic form of religious thoughts, feelings and actions of the individual and the community, which amalgamate and creatively reshape and adapt to themselves the religious content and practice of Church institutions and priests. They focus sense and feelings more strongly than reason. They like expressive forms, are picturesque and demand the metaphorics of the intimate. It is not easy to encompass them since the relationship between established and less official texts is dynamic and ranges from fully opposite poles to harmonious steadfastness. In that process, they are fluid and move in the direction of superstition, magic and astrology. Many of their elements interweave with entreaties, exorcisms, charms and spells, that is, with all texts that have the wondrous, supernatural power of words at their centre. They invoke Jesus, the Mother of God, God, the saints, they cure ailments, drive off field pests, disperse evil clouds or expel the Devil from human beings. They are closely bound with the linguistic form that creates them so that one may speak of a concentrated, formulaic language. They are similar to formulae and, indeed, are formulae themselves on occasion. It is sometimes difficult to judge whether this is a case of rhyming, rhythmic sentences (or verses) that stem from the historical stratum of former magic rituals or whether they belong in their secondary stratum to former (and also partly current) customs ; on a formal linguistic level, such an expression (formula, verse) corresponds to direct spell casting, while the formulae in which God is evoked or gratitude is expressed are prayers. That is what actually marks both opposing poles of what we call cultic formulae – pre-Christian and Christian.

Small Croatian Folk Prayers: Formulism and Metaphorics; small prayers, formulism, methaphorics, Croatia, 20th century

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