| Description |
xiii, 429 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 381-394) and index. |
| Contents |
Introduction : dancing as life -- Geographical maps -- pt. I. Dancing the year : the ritual cycle of fertility -- 1. Swan maidens, mermaids, and tree spirits : introduction, through folktales, to some dancing goddesses (vily, rusalki, willies, etc.) of eastern European folklore -- 2. Marking time : how nonliterate farmers devised and kept their agricultural (seasonal) calendar -- 3. To bring the Spring : fertility rituals of early spring -- 4. Dancing up a storm : dance ritual of leaf-clad orphans to end drought ; problems of rain and hail -- 5. Crazy Week, Rusalia Week : fertility rituals of Semik, Trinity, and Rusalia Week ; dance brotherhoods of Rusalia; perils of Mad Wednesday -- 6. Flowers with powers : plants the willies love and hate ; plants to heal, protect, and bewitch -- 7. Midsummer Rusalii : fertility rituals of St. John's Night ; herbs, water, fire ; child's sleeve dance -- 8. Friday, St. Friday : curious history of the weekday sacred to female deities -- 9. The Twelve Days of Christmas : midwinter Rusalii, during intercalary Twelve Days: propitiating good and bad spirits for the New Year (and whence came our Yuletide customs) -- pt. II. Bride-dancing for fertility : The Frog Princes -- 10. Cosmic arrow : finding a bride -- 11. Bride testing : rituals testing a girl for marriage (Can she make the food and clothing?). |
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12. Trial by dance : is she strong enough to do all the farmwork, too? -- 13. The Magic Sleeve Dance : more relics of dancing swan maidens -- 14. Second Skins : shape-changing spirits -- 15. The hut on chicken legs : old witches keeping ritual knowledge, training young women -- 16. Koshchey the Deathless : shamans and wizards, battling for communal good -- pt. III. Dancing back through time -- 17. Medieval traces : medieval evidence for rituals and beliefs -- 18. Roman showbiz : Roman evidence for the rituals -- 19. Dancing with the Greeks : classical and archaic Greek evidence ; Dionysos and Thrace -- 20. Back to the Bronze Age : Minoan and Mycenaean evidence ; from Indo-European horse rituals to a child's hobbyhorse -- 21. Dancing at the dawn of agriculture : evidence that this whole belief system began with the first farmers of Europe, 6000-3000 BC -- pt. IV. Gotta dance! -- 22. Keeping together in time : what cognitive science has learned about human dance ; trance-dancing and firewalking -- 23. Dancing the time warp : possibilities of reconstructing the dances -- Epilogue: dancing divinity ; parallel stories from Greece and Japan of angry fertility goddesses made to laugh by obscene dance : dance restores life -- Appendix: Bracelets from Kiev with ritual motifs. |
| Subject |
Folklore -- Europe, Eastern.
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Folklore -- Balkan Peninsula.
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Goddesses -- Folklore.
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Agriculture -- Folklore.
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Folk dancing -- Europe, Eastern -- History -- To 1500.
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Folk dancing -- Balkan Peninsula -- History -- To 1500.
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Europe, Eastern -- Social life and customs.
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Balkan Peninsula -- Social life and customs.
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Ethnoarchaeology -- Europe, Eastern.
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Ethnoarchaeology -- Balkan Peninsula.
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Agriculture. (OCoLC)fst00801355
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Ethnoarchaeology. (OCoLC)fst00916070
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Folk dancing. (OCoLC)fst00928643
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Folklore. (OCoLC)fst00930306
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Goddesses. (OCoLC)fst00944180
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Manners and customs. (OCoLC)fst01007815
|
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Balkan Peninsula. (OCoLC)fst01241484
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Europe, Eastern. (OCoLC)fst01245079
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| Chronological Term |
To 1500
|
| Genre/Form |
Folklore. (OCoLC)fst01423784
|
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History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
|
| ISBN |
0393348504 (pbk.) |
|
9780393348507 (pbk.) |
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