Preliminary communication
MYTHOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS OF THE ST MARTIN PERIOD: THE BACCHIC AURA OF THE ST MARTIN MYTH
Antonija Zaradija Kiš
orcid.org/0000-0002-2013-9398
; Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper considers the culturo-anthropological diversity of the St Martin myth, whose living folklore customs permit one to speak of the St Martin myth as a significant component in Christian mythology, based on the mnemonic traces of Celtic myths and those of Antiquity along with sumptuous hagiographic acquirements. We shall review particularly the Bacchic determinants of the St Martin myth and their reflection in the Croatian Martinje customs. In our search for the source of what is, at first glance, a limited sequence of events such as baptism of the wine must, mythological links also emerged, which, with all three of their mythological functions – narrative, initiational and etiological – as well as the elaborated ritual, support the mythological awareness in which there are echoes of the speech of civilisation inscribed in time and space.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
23267
URI
Publication date:
19.12.2007.
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