E-mail: anna-kadabra@mail.ru Tel.: + 7 (915) 066-19-56 6, Miusskaya sq., Moscow, 125993, Russian Federation Post-graduate student of the Center of Folklore Typology and Semiotics, Russian State University for Humanities
Oral dream-books contain the formula “a black horse predicts a disease, and a white horse predicts death”, which has been recorded from several Eastern Slavic regions. It differs from the usual way of interpretation of the same object depending on its color in the dream space. As a rule, in this case, a black object portends death / illness / “something bad”, and the white one, on the contrary, has a positive meaning. The article considers the narratives about prophetic dreams with the image of a white or a black horse. The author attempts to find parallels between the plot of these dreams and belief narratives, containing the image of a white or a black horse. Basing on comparative analysis of these texts, the author concludes that white (black) color of the horse actualizes understanding of this animal as a certain demonic being (its personification or attribute) not only in the belief narratives (for example, the stories about a dead person or the spirits of the forest (field) who are riding the black or the white horse), but also in narration about a prophetic dream. Some of such dreams represent classic examples of otherworld dreams (“inomirnye sny”), the main motif of which is a contact with other world beings. For example: the dream about a dead one riding a white (black) horse and taking away a person, who is alive, predicts death of this person. Some of the analyzed texts can be reduced to patterns of otherworld dreams, for example: the dream about living person, who left away with a white horse, predicted death of this person. On the one hand, it explains the negative interpretation of the both images (either of a black or a white horse) in the oral dream-book, on the other hand — the similarity of such images and their interpretation in the dream narratives, which contradicts with the formula “a black horse predicts a disease, and a white horse predicts the death”. Namely, it doesn’t matter if a dead one sleighs either a black or a white horse or a living person takes a horse of each such colors by bridles, but the interpretation of the prophetic dream remains the same.
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