Edinost in Dialog (Dec 2021)
Ethnological Outline of Folklore Fragments on the World of Hieronymus in Slovene Lands
Abstract
The article tries first to present St. Hieronymus, or St. Jerome, in the Slovene consciousness, as evidenced by rare philological sources. Coincidental sources from older periods and dialectal versions of Hieronymus' name: Heron (Heruon), Ronko or Rone, Jeruman, testify that awareness of him in the past was much more alive than it is today. Testimony that recourse to St. Hieronymus was much more alive in the past than it is today was rescued just before falling into oblivion by the third, ethnological section. Today only the church calendar retains the memory of him with faint reminders of former celebrations beside succursal churches dedicated to St. Hieronymus (Petkovec, Čelje, Bošamarin /near Koper/, Topolovec, Tabor above Vransko) and pilgrimages (Nanos, Koritnice near Knežak, Petkovec, Topolovec), and in Ljubljana, the Hieronymus Mass in Latin has been revived every year on September 30 at the Emona baptistery. There is no Slovene or weather proverb connected with St. Hieronymus, although his name day was once marked in wine-growing regions every year as the time by which the grapes were supposed to be harvested. Pilgrims in Koritnice near Knežak and in Celje near Ilirska Bistrica were very impressed by the fact that Vipava grapes were available at pilgrimage churches of St. Hieronymus. The central section is the richest, with an ancient fairy tale and a variety of stories, which are little treasures, memoirs, beliefs and intercessions, in which a pre-Christian mythological layer can be seen under the Christian blanket infiltrated by the modern phenomena. Throwing gifts into the water actually means giving to water, and sweets are an obvious proof of modern social culture, since they were formerly unknown. In fact, the collected folklore field material did not help to resolve the question of the place (and date) of Hieronymus' birth. In addition to the two still vital pilgrimage churches of Hieronymus in Notranjska (Koritnice, Čelje), it is surprising that there is also a church dedicated to St. Anton Puščavnik, and at Tabor near Vransko, an altar to St. Anton Puščavnik was added in the church of St. Jerome and the informants shamelessly but rightly state that believers formerly more often, and today in general, turned to St. Anton than to St. Jerome.
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