St. Elijah's day in the tradition of the Don region: beliefs and proverbs

The article analyzes folk ideas and set expressions associated with the day of the Holy Prophet Elijah. The study was conducted on the material obtained in the course of a field ethnographic study of the territory of the former Don Host Region (modern Rostov and part of Volgograd Oblasts), carried out in the period from 1981 to 2014. The work was carried out using descriptive and typological methods, as well as a complex ethnolinguistic methodology, which involves the study of the language through the prism of human consciousness, mentality, everyday and ritual behavior, mythological representations and mythopoetic creativity. The lexical design of the calendar date and the idea of a saint as a rainmaker are consistently characterized. Various forms of regulation of behavior associated with chores are described. The existing ban on swimming in the period after the day of Elijah the Prophet is emphasized; explanations of this ban that existed in traditional notions are given, the lack of need to observe this ban at later times is revealed. The significance of the day of Elijah the Prophet as a landmark date in the cycles of growing garden and melon crops, in particular, onions, cabbage, etc., is described. Proverbs, signs and beliefs associated with the cultivation of these crops in the corresponding period are given. Analyzing the texts of sources about holidays and behavior regulation, the author notes the presence of symbolic rows, which include St. Elijah’s Day. A significant part of the considered motives is known to all Eastern Slavs. The absence of detailed rites on St. Elijah’s Day was established in the region under study. The boundary-calendar nature of the holiday in the ritual year of the Don Cossacks was revealed (seasonal border of summer and autumn, cessation of the swimming season, harvesting vegetables). The author determines that the signs dated to the day of Elijah the Prophet regarding the cultivation of garden and melon crops bring together the beliefs of the Don Cossacks and the inhabitants of the south and south-west of Eastern Slavia. In two regions, an original belief was recorded about the hatching of a magical cabbage flower on the eve of St. Elijah’s Day. In the former Don Host Region, the image of this day is highlighted against the background of more northern local traditions, where the function of the saint as the bearer of the harvest is more clearly expressed.