TIME AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MAGIC: COMPRESSING AND PROLONGING OF TIME IN THE SLAVIC FOLK TRADITION

Abstract

In the traditional folk culture of the Slavs, time, together with other elements and features of the external world, is given both a positive and a negative meaning: it could be good or bad, clean or dirty, dangerous or safe. From the time when a man is born, his destiny is established, and by the time he is dead his destiny after death is defined; the selection of the accurate timing is an indispensable condition for success of all beginnings: ploughing, harvest, taking the cattle out at the fields, building a house, weaving, getting married etc. Time is the most important regulator of all practical and ritual activities of people and it presents one of the main instruments for managing the world and structuring of human life.