Names of Trees in East Slavic Charms

Abstract

This paper continues the series of the authors’ works on the toponymy of charms previously published in Voprosy Onomastiki. It deals with proper names of trees (dendronyms) in East Slavic spells coming from East Belarusian, East Ukrainian, West and South Russian territories where the considered folklore tradition is particularly prominent. The naming of revered trees is a fairly common cult practice that occurs through cultural semiotization of significant plant properties: the most important features are the size and spreading of a tree, its situational connection with a person, the place of growth, etc. The folklore tradition (as reflected in charms) of naming trees follows the same logic, however, direct evidence of dendronyms “migration” from the real toponymic system to the texts of charms is lacking. The origins of mythodendronyms are established mainly in folklore, book and manuscript tradition. The paper explores functional features of charms that include names of trees (typically these are healing charms against fever and a snakebite). Hence, a classification of dendronyms from the point of view of their origin is proposed: deanthroponymic names (Yevim oak, Erofei tree, Katyarina byarosa, etc.), toponym-based names (Mamvriy oak, Buyan oak, Lukomor oak, etc.), ethnonym-based names (Sorochinsky oak, Vereisk oak, etc.), names derived form appellatives (karcolist tree, starodub oak, Rakitaniy oak, Kindyashnoe tree, and many others). The paper proposes etymological and motivational solutions for most of the mythodendronyms known to the authors, many of which are “opaque” and have not yet received a reliable interpretation.

Keywords

• microtoponymy
• tree names
• dendronyms
• language of folklore
• charms
• east slavic languages
• etymology
• semantic and motivational reconstruction
• linguistic geography