Toponyms in the Charms of the Russian North. I: Seas and Rivers

Abstract

The present paper is the first one in a series of articles focusing on the origins and functioning of place names in oral or handwritten charm texts attested in the Russian North, i.e. in the Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Olonets, and Kostroma regions. The paper examines the names of water bodies (seas and rivers) present in the charms. The analysis builds on the largest corpus of materials available to the modern folklore studies. In each toponym’s description, the authors consider the following parameters: 1) variations of the name in the charms of the Russian North; 2) number of texts with reference to the toponym; 3) ties of the toponym with other namesof geographical objects within a given text; 4) isofunctional toponyms; 5) folklore motives featuring the geographical object and its name; 6) representation of this name in other genres of folklore; 7) correlations with the real toponymy of the Russian North; 8) possible etymologies of the name. The authors distinguish between two main types of charm toponyms (for nameswith more or less transparent motivation) these are: precedent-related names with prototypeoutside the charm text (in real toponymy or the Holy Scripture: Khvalyn sea, the Jordan river), and folklore ones with no such precedents; the latter are divided into general folklore names (found not only in the charms, but also in other genres of folklore, such the Currant river, Ocean sea) and those specifi c to the charms, relevant only for this genre (the Ragoza river). It is symptomatic that in the analysis of names and objects belonging to different types researchers face different problems. For example, for biblical toponyms the most relevant problem is the one of establishing correlation between the charm name with the precedent-related toponym and the range of meanings and stories it accumulates. The names of rivers raise the question of the folklore toponym correlation with the real river names — Slavic and Russian river names, water bodies of the Russian North.

Keywords

• toponymy
• hydronymy
• language of Russian folklore
• charms
• the Russian North
• semantic and motivational reconstruction