Tales and myths ancient egypt. Evolution of Consciousness in the Tale of Two Brothers The events of fairy tales do not reflect some kind of abstraction, but the current psychic reality of life... Analysis of fairy tales and myths is the way of contact with archetypal ideas. If we understand

What are the myths about the creation of the world?

Russian folk tales “How can I, the old man, not cry. How can I, old, not cry: I lost the golden book In the dark forest, I dropped the key to the church In the blue sea. The Lord God answers the old man: “Don’t cry, old man, don’t sigh, I’m weaving a new book with stars, Golden

Tales and myths of ancient Egypt. Evolution of Consciousness in the Tale of Two Brothers The events of fairy tales reflect not some kind of abstraction, but the current psychic reality of life... Analysis of fairy tales and myths is a way of contacting archetypal ideas. If we understand

Tales Tales about Vasilisa the Beautiful, about gray wolf and Ivan Tsarevich, about the Pike command published in Harbin under the editorship of Vs. N. Ivanova. A small book that costs only ten fen and is therefore very affordable. At Sun. N. Ivanov has long had a great idea about publishing in

The difference between a myth and a fairy tale is not obvious. For modern man both types of narrative tell of miracles, the adventures of heroes (humans, animals, or gods) endowed with supernatural qualities. However, if you look closely, the difference between a myth and a fairy tale is not so difficult to notice. It concerns and can be called the progenitor of both genres. Each of them has something from an ancestor, but both a fairy tale and a legend differ from it in a whole set of features.

Source

Myth is the result of people's rethinking of all the phenomena that occur before their eyes, that determine or accompany life. Initially, it performed the functions that science has taken on today. The myth explained what, where and why it comes from, by what rules the Universe lives, how it all began. Today we perceive it as a beautiful narrative about cosmic processes or a somewhat naive presentation of our ancestors about etiology (origin) individual items and phenomena. In ancient times, myths acted as a concentration of worldview truths, opposed to everyday understanding.

Plots

Myths of different nations always tell about distant, prehistoric times. One of their main functions is to explain the emergence of things, living beings and natural phenomena. The most common mythological stories- the origin of the world, gods and heroes, the appearance of the first people, and so on.

The reality of the events described in the myth was not questioned. An illustrative example in this sense is the works of ancient philosophers. For Herodotus, Titus Livius and other historians of antiquity, it was myths that served as the main source of information about the past.

The plots are based on the close relationship between the real and the invisible worlds. Moreover, the second is almost always determined by the first. Myths tell about otherworldly creatures, their features and ways of interacting with them. They explain how to worship the gods, how they can be appeased or angered.

successor

The similarities and differences of myths and fairy tales, at least their essence, become intuitively clear after determining the more ancient component of this pair as a concentrated form of worldview and basic thoughts of the distant ancestors of modern peoples. Let's define them more specifically.

Tales from myth grow. This position is supported by most researchers of the issue. They borrow many plots, some characters. Fairy tales always have a magical, fantastic component in their composition. This is their similarity with their "ancestor".

Reality and fiction

In order to understand how to distinguish a myth from a fairy tale, it is necessary to pay attention to the content of the narrative, as well as to its purpose. If you think of Cinderella, the girl with matches, or any story involving Baba Yaga, none of the examples will be able to find an explanation of natural or cosmic processes. Fairy tales do not describe the structure of the world and do not tell about the origin of living beings or objects. Moreover, even in the most ancient times, they did not seem to anyone, except perhaps very young children, to be a story about real events. The difference between a myth and a fairy tale is that the events described in the first were not questioned. The tale was initially defined as fiction by both the narrator and the listener.

A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it

One of the purposes of the existence of the well-known stories about Little Red Riding Hood or Ivanushka the Fool is to entertain listeners. However, the role of fairy tales in our life is not limited to this. They do not describe cosmic laws, but explain many social, family, tribal, social principles and norms. A common plot is the oppression of the heroine by her stepmother and her daughters. Researchers often interpret it as a story about the likely consequences of marriage with representatives of a too distant tribe.

Many fairy tales tell about the ups and downs of heroes who are on the low rungs of the social ladder (and this is another difference between a myth and a fairy tale: in the first, heroes more often initially have a number of advantages in relation to other characters). Ivan the Fool, orphans, offended and deprived in the course of history, after trials and meetings with wonderful helpers, receive wealth, a princess and half a kingdom in addition. Many plots that describe events in a particular family actually tell about the processes of a tribal or national scale. Some present the listener with a personal story, from which everyone can isolate something useful for themselves.

profane and sacred

The difference between a myth and a fairy tale can be briefly formulated as follows:

• a fairy tale is a fiction, a myth is a reality for our distant ancestors;
• a fairy tale is created, read and listened to for entertainment, a myth belongs to the realm of the sacred, in some cases not even everyone was allowed to know it;
• the fairy tale tells about the personal grief or happiness of the characters, family or tribal history, in the myth the focus is on global events, its heroes are always endowed with superhuman properties;
• a fairy tale teaches, describes social processes, a myth explains the structure of the world.

It is quite easy to see the difference between a myth and a fairy tale on the example of the stories told by the Brothers Grimm and ancient stories. However, this is not always the case. Archaic tales, which appeared first, grow directly from myth and often borrow heroes and plot logic from it. But even in this case, upon closer examination, elements can be distinguished that turn the sacred narrative into just an interesting story with meaning.

Legend

The difference between a myth and a fairy tale lies in the time of the events described. The first tells about the most ancient era. The plot of a fairy tale, as a rule, is out of time: it is almost impossible to determine when certain events took place. The same applies to the location. A characteristic feature of the legend - another genre that in the minds of many is identical to the myth - is precisely time. The events described take place at a particular time. historical era. The accuracy of dating is rarely in doubt. And here lies the similarity of myths and legends: they are conceived as a description of real events. The two genres also have a fantastic component in common.

The difference between myth and legend and fairy tale lies in the plot. The first, as already mentioned, tells about the deeds of heroes and gods, which are reflected in the entire universe and explain one or another of its laws. The legend sets out historical events that happened to people, and often really took place in reality. They are often embellished and complemented by spectacular details, mystical and fantastic elements.

lore

The legend, like a fairy tale, loses the element of sacredness. Its heroes act at a later time than in myth. Often their existence in reality is proved by many other sources. At the same time, in the European tradition, the legends told about the deeds of the characters of sacred history. Narratives about the events of worldly life were called legends. Often such a description was not accompanied by fantastic additions.

Traditions and legends are not distinguishable from each other by far not in all cultures. The boundary between them can only be drawn in a society where the early mythological systems have been replaced by a new single religion (Christianity or Islam).

Mythology and religion

If the difference between a myth and a fairy tale in literature is not obvious to many, then the boundary separating myth and religion is even more invisible to an inexperienced person in the matter. Throughout history, many scientists have dealt with this topic. Some tried to purify religion from the admixture of mythology, others praised the second and distrusted the first. Today, for researchers, the deep connection between these two concepts and systems is obvious.

As already mentioned, myths act as an equivalent modern science at a certain stage of human development. They explain the structure of the world and in this function they are far from religion. At the same time, myths substantiate norms of behavior and customs. They substantiate the immutability of many social rituals and prohibitions, endow them with sacredness. This is how religious customs grow out of myths. The sequence of ritual actions, the need for prohibitions are due to the fact that this is exactly what the gods or heroes depicted in the myth did. However, religion cannot be called a secondary education. For many followers of one or another cult, mythology did not have of great importance. It was not necessary to believe in her stories. At the same time, worship of the gods and knowledge of the ritual were considered important. Thus, religion and mythology retained a certain independence from each other and on early stages development of society. And in most cases it is impossible to determine the primacy of one in relation to the other.

The difference between a myth and a fairy tale and religion, from legend and tradition becomes clear only after a detailed consideration of each category separately. Myth can be called the ancestor of almost all literary genres and even the very art of storytelling. The situation is somewhat different with religion. Mythology is closely related to it, but is not its source. It explains many religious rites, but often turns out to be an unnecessary, burdensome component.

MUSIC AND ARTS

Lesson 7

Theme: Myths and fairy tales - the eternal source of art.

Lesson objectives: to develop the ability to find interaction between music and literature and express them in reflection; Analyze and generalize the variety of links between music and literature.

During the classes:

Organizing time.

The music of P. I. Tchaikovsky sounds: Pas de deux from the ballet The Nutcracker.

Read the epigraph to the lesson. How do you understand it?

Board writing:

“Like a fairy tale - the world. The tales of the people
Their wisdom is dark, but doubly sweet,
Like this ancient mighty nature,
From infancy sunk into my soul ... "
(N. Zabolotsky)

The topic of the lesson.

Tell me, how did the music that we listened to sound like? (She sounded magical, gentle, unusually beautiful. When you listen to her, it seems as if you are in a fairy tale.)

Yes, of course, it really is. It is not by chance that we began this lesson with the beautiful music of Tchaikovsky, this wonderful composer and storyteller. Today we will go to the distant musical journey in time.

Work on the topic of the lesson.

1. Music in myths, tales and legends.

There are a great many musical events, the beginning of which is so far away from us that even the magic spyglass of time could not clearly bring them closer. However, let's not get upset. Our memory will come to our rescue more than once, the common memory of mankind is a magical “time machine” that can move us in time and space.

The most remarkable, most interesting guides to the distant past for people have always been old fairy tales, myths, legends about music and musicians.

Ancient myths, created by folk fantasy, came from the depths of centuries. The ancient Greeks believed that with the onset of heat on the top of Mount Parnassus, beautiful girls of nine sisters, nine daughters of the lord of the gods, Zeus, gathered for festivities. They were called the muses of life - the goddesses of singing. They patronized the arts and sciences.

The young goddess-muses are the daughters of 3eus and the goddess of memory Mnemosyne. There are nine of them in total, and each of them patronizes certain kind arts, sciences. So, four of them are the patrons of musical and poetic art: Euterpe is the muse of lyrical poetry and songs, Calliope is the muse epic poetry, ancient legends, Polyhymnia - the muse of sacred hymns, Erato - the muse love poetry. Terpsichore patronizes dance, Thalia patronizes comedies, Melpomene patronizes tragedies. The eighth muse - Clio - the patroness of history; ninth - Urania - the patroness of astronomy.

Drawing water from the Key of Castile or from the source of Hippocrene, the Muses bestowed it on the elect. Those, having drunk life-giving moisture, became artists, poets, dancers and actors, musicians and scientists.

Standing in a circle, the Muses danced and sang to the sounds of a golden cithara, which was played by the patron of the arts, the god Apollo. And when their divine voices sing hymns to the accompaniment of the golden cithara of Apollo, the whole world reverently listens to their harmonious singing. The voices of the girls merged into a harmonious chorus, and all nature, as if enchanted, listened to the sweet-sounding melodies. People became kinder, and the gods were more merciful.

What is the meaning of myths, fairy tales and legends? (Myths, fairy tales, legends are the eternal source of art. This applies not only to music, but also to literature, painting. All these sources have opened up new facets of the work of the great authors of various works of art. Art does not copy real life, but lives its own life, not subject to fuss ordinary life.)

2. Listening piece of music

The charm of fairy tales and myths is so great that their influence can be found in many works associated with images of nature.

Now we will listen to Anatoly Konstantinovich Lyadov's play "Magic Lake".

If you look at the water for a long time, whether it is the huge waves of the sea or the small ripples of the lake, then it begins to seem that someone is painting on the water with his invisible brush. This pattern is impossible to catch and remember, it changes all the time. There you can see anything - the mysterious faces of otherworldly creatures, the curly hair of girls or a fish eye peeping at you right from the depths.

A person cannot live in water, but sitting on the shore, especially at dusk, one really believes that there, at the bottom, there is also life of its own. And she is just as beautiful as among people. As soon as the legendary Sadko dared to go down to the bottom to the Tsar of the Sea, and even then it turned out that he had just dreamed everything ...

Perhaps, in the same way, while sitting on the shore at dusk, Anatoly Lyadov dreamed of the magical life of the lake. In his sketch sketch, a drawing of a forest lake in the vicinity of the village of Polynovka, with reeds and firs on the shore, was preserved, which probably served as a prototype for writing music. If he were an artist, he would put these magnificent colors on the canvas. But the composer has his own palette. He paints with sounds - voices and instruments, and it was the orchestra's palette that best embodied this fabulous idea. When he played this piece, it was in such a way that the timbres of different instruments seemed to be heard in every sound of the piano. (Listening to the work).

What can you tell about the piece you listened to, maybe you noticed some peculiarity in this piece. (The music sounded calm, peaceful, fabulous, magical, there was no excitement or tension in it.)

That's right, the music conveyed the state complete calm and fabulous beauty, and besides this, as you rightly noted, there was no dramatic tension and development in the music, the image of the magical lake is contemplative, which is a feature of this work, since there are very few such works where there is no climax, tension, development. At the end of the play, the image gradually disappears, the sonority subsides, the lake plunges into silence. All the charm of Russian folk tales, all the magical charm of fabulous forest landscapes inhabited by mysterious creatures, found its musical expression in this play.

Not only images of various folk tales, but the plots and characters of all world mythologies were embodied in music in their own way, giving it a huge semantic originality. Let's recall some of them. (The student reads the prepared material).

- Once, as the legend tells, the god of the forests Pan met the beautiful nymph Syrinx and fell in love with her at first sight. Pan, whose head was crowned with horns, and whose feet were with hooves, did not like Syrinx. She rushed away from him.

The enamored Pan pursued her, but the dense forest covered the girl who was flying away from him. Pan had already overtaken her, and extended his hand forward. He thought that he had caught up with her and was holding her by the hair, but it turned out that it was not the girl's hair, but reed foliage. They say that the earth hid the maiden from him, and instead gave birth to a reed. From anger and resentment, Pan cut the reed, believing that he hid his beloved. But even after that he couldn't find it. Then he realized that the girl had turned into a reed, and was very sad that he himself had killed her. Pan gathered all the reeds like parts of the body, joined them together, took them in his hands and began to kiss the fresh cuts. His breath entered through the holes in the reeds, and the Syrinx sounded. The sad Pan carved a melodious flute from a reed and has not parted with it since.

AT Ancient Greece a multi-barreled flute was common - the flute of Pan, or Syrinx. The syrinx consists of several tubes, each of which is a reed. Just as a flute is poured under the fingers of Athena, the Syrinx sings in the mouth of Pan. (Listening to the work of M. Zamfir "Run Away From Wordly Celebration").

Imitating the sound of mythical musical instruments, the composers improved the timbres, searched for their new combinations, introduced the voices of birds, the sound of the wind, the murmur of water jets into the orchestral score. Music space filled with lively sounds, figurative characteristics acquired an extraordinary artistic authenticity.

Listen to an excerpt from piano piece Maurice Ravel. I won't tell you the name of this work, try to name it yourself. (Listening to music).

What does this music look like, what did it sound like famous composer? (Children's answers are heard, conclusions are drawn on this section).

This music depicts the sounds of waves, and this piece is called "The Play of Water." You can clearly hear the overflows of jets sparkling in the sun.

Epigraph to this work Ravel took lines from a poem by Henri de Regnier: "The river god laughing at the jets that tickle him." And outlines it so visibly that we can imagine a beautiful sunny day, crystal clear clean reservoir and the laughter of the river god, which merges with the laughter of rapidly murmuring water.

Visibility reveals itself even in musical notation. In the following musical example this visibility is present quite obviously. Wide spills of river waves are literally depicted in the upper layer of musical sound.

Summary of the lesson.

It's hard to say now literary genre which the music would not try to translate into its own language. A variety of poetic genres - elegies and odes, ballads and hymns, poetic forms - rondo, sonnet, octave - all this, in addition to the traditional forms of song and romance, sounded in music, enriched it with new intonations, new means of expression.

Becoming part of the music literary images entered cantatas, oratorios, operas and even covered the field of instrumental music. The anthem sounds in the final chorus from M. Glinka's opera "A Life for the Tsar", F. Schiller's ode "To Joy" - in the finale of L. Beethoven's last, Ninth Symphony. "Elegy" by J. Massenet, ballads by F. Chopin are valuable in themselves musical genres, departed from their poetic prototype, but retained the figurative structure and spiritualized lyricism of these poetic genres.

Thus literature gives life to a vast realm musical art. And these are such significant parts of it as:

• vocal music: opera, oratorio, romance, song;
• stage music: ballet, dramatic play with music, musical;
• program music created for a literary subject, including instrumental music: a symphony, a concerto, a play.

Without the influence of the word, the structure of the musical work would probably be completely different, musical speech, which has become expressive and meaningful thanks to the commonwealth with poetry. This partnership continues to this day. Despite the fact that both poetry and music have long acquired independence, the ability to conquer huge art spaces, they sometimes meet again, and such meetings again and again lead to new discoveries. And this is not surprising: after all, it is impossible to break by force what for many centuries has grown together not only by branches, but also by roots.

Literature and music: their union is forever marked by the stamp of noble influence on each other. Because both music from literature and literature from music learned only the best.

Questions and tasks:

1. Is there a great influence of literature on music? How does it manifest itself?
2. What types of literature are used by composers when creating musical works?
3. Name the types of music that arose under the influence of literature.
4. In the "Diary of Musical Observations" write down a poem that you could offer the composer to create a song. Try to explain your choice.

Development of the lesson by I. V. Koneva and N. V. Terentyeva.

Presentation:

Included:
1. Presentation - 26 slides, ppsx;
2. Sounds of music:
Chaikovsky. Pas de deux from The Nutcracker, mp3;
Lyadov. Magic Lake, mp3;
Ravel. Water game, mp3;
Run Away From Wordly Celebration (pan flute), mp3;
3. Accompanying article - lesson summary, docx.

Photos by Lilia Babayan, Alexei Chernikov and Anna Benu Costumes by Ekaterina and Svetlana Miroshnichenko, Anna Benu and Valentina Meshcheryakova

Makeup Anastasia Dudina

Cover design by Alexander Smolovoy and Anna Benu

Introduction
What are myths and fairy tales about?

Common to all fairy tales are the remains of a belief that goes back to ancient times, which expresses itself through a figurative understanding of supersensible things. This mythical belief is like small pieces of a cracked precious stone, which lie loosely on the earth overgrown with grass and flowers and can only be detected by a keenly looking eye. Its meaning has long been lost, but it is still perceived and fills the tale with content, while at the same time satisfying the natural desire for miracles; fairy tales are never an empty play of colors, devoid of fantasy content.

Wilhelm Grimm

To create a myth, so to speak, to dare to seek a higher reality behind the reality of common sense, is the most obvious sign of the greatness of the human soul and proof of its ability to endless growth and development.

Louis-Auguste Sabatier, French theologian

Life is a myth, a fairy tale, with their positive and negative characters, magical mysteries leading to self-knowledge, ups and downs, struggle and liberation of one's soul from the captivity of illusions. Therefore, everything that meets on the way is a riddle given to us by fate in the form of a Gorgon Medusa or a dragon, a labyrinth or a flying carpet, on the solution of which the further mythological outline of our existence depends. In fairy tales, scenarios of our life beat with a pulsating rhythm, where wisdom is the Firebird, the king is the mind, Koschey is a veil of delusions, Vasilisa the Beautiful is the soul ...

Man is a myth. The story is you...

Anna Benu

Why are fairy tales and myths immortal? Civilizations die, peoples disappear, and their stories, the wisdom of myths and legends come to life again and again and excite us. What kind of attractive force is hidden in the depths of their story?

Why do myths and fairy tales not lose their relevance in our reality?

What is the most real thing in the world for you, reader?

For each person, the most real thing in the world is himself, his inner world, his hopes and discoveries, his pain, defeats, victories and achievements. Is there anything that worries us more than what is happening to us now, at this period of life?

In this book, I consider fairy tales and myths as scenarios for the life of each of us. This is about our firebirds of wisdom and Serpents Gorynychi illusions tell old stories. It is about our victory over the chaos of everyday obstacles that ancient myths tell.

Therefore, fairy tales are immortal and dear to us, they take us on new journeys, encourage us to new discoveries of their secrets and ourselves.

This book examines one of the many facets of the interpretation of ancient myths and fairy tales of different peoples, fairy-tale mythological thinking and its symbolism.

Many researchers of fairy tales and myths reveal their different aspects, different ways of interpretation, mutually enriching each other. Vladimir Propp considers fairy tales from the point of view of folk beliefs, rites and rituals.

K.G. Jung and his followers - from the point of view of the archetypal experience of mankind. Jung argued that it is thanks to fairy tales that one can best study the comparative anatomy of the human psyche. "Myth is a natural and necessary step between unconscious and conscious thinking"(K.G. Jung).

American mythologist Joseph Campbell considers myths a source of development, information and inspiration for mankind: “Myth is a secret gate through which the inexhaustible energy of the cosmos pours into the cultural achievements of man. Religions, philosophies, art, the social institutions of primitive and modern people, the basic discoveries of science and technology, even the dreams that fill our sleep, are all drops from the magical boiling bowl of myth.

The 20th-century Indian philosopher Ananda Kumaraswamy says of myth: "Myth embodies the closest approach to absolute truth that can be expressed in words."

John Francis Beerline, an American mythologist, writes in his book Parallel Mythology: "Myths– the oldest form of science, reflections on how the Universe came into being ... Myths, taken by themselves, show an amazing similarity between the cultures of different peoples separated by vast distances. And this commonality helps us to see behind all the differences the beauty of the unity of humanity ... Myth is a kind of unique language that describes the realities that lie beyond our five senses. It fills the gap between the images of the subconscious and the language of conscious logic.

A.N. Afanasiev with amazing constancy sees natural phenomena in all myths and fairy tales: the sun, clouds, thunder and lightning. Prometheus is a lightning fire chained to a rock-cloud; the evil Locke of Germanic mythology - clouds and thunder; the god Agni of Indian mythology - "winged lightning"; “the poker is the emblem of the lightning club of the god Agni, the pomelo is the whirlwind fanning the thunderstorm flame”; winged horse - a whirlwind; Baba Yaga, flying on a whirlwind broom, is a cloud; crystal and golden mountain - the sky; Buyan Island - spring sky; the mighty oak of the island of Buyan, just like the wonderful tree of Valhalla, is a cloud; all the dragons and snakes that the heroes fight against are also clouds; the beauty maiden is the red sun, abducted by the snake - a symbol of winter fogs, lead clouds, and the maiden's liberator is the lightning hero breaking the clouds; miraculous yudo whale fish, goldfish and pike Emelya, wish-fulfilling - a cloud filled with the fruitful moisture of life-giving rain, etc. etc.

Afanasiev in his book "The Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" examines in great detail, in volume, one of the facets of the interpretation of a fairy tale and myth.

Of course, a person living surrounded by nature, its elements, cannot but reflect it in his poetic comparisons. But as a microcosm, a person carries in himself a reflection of the macrocosm - the entire surrounding world, therefore, one can consider the fabulous and mythological thinking of mankind as a reflection on the meaning and purpose of one's being in this vast, full of hints and clues amazing world.

“A myth is a symbolic story that reveals the inner meaning of the universe and human life”(Alan Watts, English writer and Western commentator on Zen Buddhist texts).

The most objective study of the fabulous-mythological thinking of ancient peoples can be done by synthesizing the experience of many authors.

Mircea Eliade calls for the study of symbolic systems, which constitute one of the areas of human self-knowledge, combining the diverse experience of professionals: “... such a study will be truly useful only if there is cooperation between scientists of different specialties. Literary criticism, psychology and philosophical anthropology should take into account the results of work carried out in the field of the history of religion, ethnography and folklore.”

This study does not claim to be completely objective. And who can apply for it, although you want to? Truth, hidden by many veils, suddenly lifts for a moment one of its veils to those who carefully peer into its elusive face, gives the joy of meeting to those who love it, and again slips away under the ghostly veils of endless secrets. But we still have the joy of meeting and its aroma, its breath ...

So once, starting to think about the meaning of myth and fairy tale, trying to penetrate into their essence, I experienced the joy of discoveries, analyzing them first in the classroom with children, then with students. I thought it was eureka! I opened! A few years later, when I was graduating from the Waldorf School, I read a book by the German researcher of European folk tales Friedel Lenz, discovering many of my discoveries, but made much earlier. Well, at least it speaks of the greater objectivity of these discoveries. And the joy of meeting with a fairy tale in your life, the myth-making of your being is always with us.

Let's start with an excursion into history.

“The word “myth” comes from the Greek mythos, which in ancient times meant “word”, “saying”, “history” ... Myth usually explains customs, traditions, faith, social institution, various cultural phenomena or natural phenomena, based on supposedly factual developments. Myths tell, for example, about the beginning of the world, how people and animals were created, where and how some customs, gestures, norms, etc. originated.

Myths are often classified according to their subject matter. The most common are cosmogonic myths, myths about cultural heroes, myths about birth and resurrection, myths about the founding of cities.

Myth-making is a property of human consciousness in general. The myth is formed in its original forms in the subconscious and consciousness of a person, it is close to its biological nature. (Laletin D.A., Parkhomenko I.T.)

Fairy tales and myths created in different parts of the world are equally interesting, understandable and attractive to people of all nationalities, ages and professions. Consequently, the symbols and images embedded in them are universal, characteristic of all mankind.

The purpose of this study is not to argue about the differences between myth and fairy tale, but to analyze similar symbols and phenomena that exist in them. To do this, let's think about what symbolic thinking is.

Symbolic thinking has been inherent in man since the beginning of time. Let's look around: the letters of the alphabet are symbols; books are a set of symbols we understand; words are a set of sounds that we conditionally took as a standard and therefore understand each other. When mentioning only these two concepts - words and letters, it becomes clear that without symbols and symbolic thinking, human development is impossible. You can list further: symbols of religions, medical designations, monetary units, road signs, ornamental symbols in art, designations of chemical elements, designations and symbols used in the computer world, etc. And the further civilization develops, the more it needs conventional signs, symbols to designate certain phenomena that open before it.

“…thanks to the symbols, the World becomes “transparent”, able to show the Almighty”(Mircea Eliade).

How did the ancient peoples understand the world? What does a fairy tale and myth carry in its essence, besides what lies on the “surface” of the text?

“The symbolic way of thinking is inherent not only to children, poets and madmen,” writes the historian of religions Mircea Eliade, “it is integral to the nature of the human being, it precedes language and descriptive thinking. The symbol reflects some - the most profound - aspects of reality that are not amenable to other ways of understanding. Images, symbols, myths cannot be considered arbitrary inventions psyche-souls, their role is to reveal the most hidden modalities of the human being. Their study will allow us to better understand a person in the future ... "(Mircea Eliade. "The myth of the eternal return").

A symbolic analysis of the fabulous mythological representations of ancient civilizations can reveal a lot to us. The study of symbols is an endless and compelling journey through time and space, leading to the timeless, to understanding ourselves.

Historical and symbolic approach to the analysis of fairy tales

famous explorer fairy tale V.Ya. Propp, who studied the historical roots of a fairy tale, draws the relationship between a fairy tale and the social system, rite, and ritual.

Nine
Far Far Away Kingdom, Far Far Away State

V.Ya. Propp gives an example of how the hero is looking for a bride to distant lands, in the thirtieth kingdom, and not in his kingdom, believing that the phenomena of exogamy could be reflected here: for some reason, a bride cannot be taken from one's own environment. This phenomenon can be considered not only from a historical point of view, but also from a symbolic one. To do this, you need to turn to the symbolism of numbers. Far Far Away is three times nine. We see here the triple - a mystical number, distinguished in all ancient cultures (see "Symbolism of numbers in fairy tales"). The ancients represented the world as a kind of triune beginning, as we will see later, analyzing cosmogonic myths. Trinity of idea, energy and matter; worlds - heavenly, earthly and underground, beyond the grave. Nine is the last number from one to ten - then the numbers are repeated in interaction. When nine is multiplied by any number, as a result of adding the digits of the resulting sum, there will always be nine. For example, 2?9 = 18, 1+8 = 9, 3?9 = 27, 2+7 = 9, 9?9= 81, 8+1 = 9, etc. Thus, 9 embodies the fullness of all numbers and is the symbol of infinity. It can be assumed that the Far Far Away kingdom is a symbol of the fullness of the trinity of the world, which the main character is looking for, wants to find and conclude an alliance with him by marrying a beautiful maiden and often reigning in it without returning back. Mircea Eliade believes that a tree growing far away is actually in another world - not a physical reality, but a transcendental one.

AT German fairy tale(Afanasiev, volume 2) the shepherd boy climbs huge tree three times for nine days. After passing the first nine days, he enters the copper kingdom with a copper source, after passing the next nine days - in silver kingdom with a silver source. Rising for another nine days, he enters golden kingdom with a spring gushing out gold. Here we see the evolution of consciousness, a vertical movement from copper - less precious to gold. Gold is also a symbol of the sun, its rays and truth. Those. here we observe the journey of consciousness to the truth hidden at the top of the world tree - the top of the cosmos. Nine days is a complete cycle. (It is no coincidence that pregnancy lasts exactly nine months.) Ie. the boy cognizes the world according to the levels of knowledge from one - initial, elementary knowledge, to nine - the completeness of a certain area of ​​being, because. then the numbers just repeat. This can be compared with the school from the first to the ninth grade - the knowledge of the copper kingdom - the collection of the necessary initial knowledge. The next nine stages of ascent to the silver realm are studying at a university, gaining more in-depth, more precious experience and knowledge. This is followed by an ascent of nine steps into the golden realm - the realm of the maturity of the golden true fruitful experience accumulated over the years of ascent.

A visit to the copper, silver and gold kingdoms and immersion in their sources speaks of the path of knowledge from earthly knowledge to the heights of heavenly knowledge to the gold of truth, to transcendental experience and transformation in it.

Ten
Thirtieth Kingdom-State

Ten is one and zero. The unit is the starting point. Pythagoras said: “The unit is the father of everything”, meaning by this figure the Logos, the original idea that creates the world, that from which everything is born. Zero precedes unity, this is that non-existence, the primordial ocean from which the Logos is born - unity and where everything, having passed its path of development, returns. Zero is a kind of infinite timeless state. One and zero are the idea and its full implementation and completion, up to the return to its original source, the full implementation of this idea.

The thirtieth kingdom is three times ten. This is a complete realization of three worlds: the world of ideas - heavenly, spiritual, the world of emotions - the sphere of earthly existence and the world of actions or the experience of ancestors - the area afterlife(in one of the contexts).

Another example of Propp. He draws analogies between the custom of sewing into the skin of a dead person and a fairy-tale motif, where the hero himself sews himself up, for example, into the skin of a cow, then a bird picks him up and takes him to a mountain or to a distant kingdom. Here you can also apply not only a historical, but also a symbolic approach based on historical roots. So, in many archaic cultures there was a cult of the mother, and in agricultural cultures the cow carried the maternal life-giving principle, was a symbol of fertility. To sew oneself into the skin of a cow means symbolically to be reborn in the womb. Next, the bird takes out the hero. The bird is an inhabitant celestial sphere, which for most peoples was a symbol of the spiritual sphere, the sky was the abode of higher beings, gods. The bird takes the hero to the distant tenth kingdom, i.e. reborn in the skin of a cow, the hero acquires with the help of a bird - his striving for knowledge - the fullness of being.

Propp also believes that some plots of fairy tales arose as a result of a rethinking of the rite and disagreement with it. So, “there was a custom to sacrifice a girl to the river, on which fertility depended. This was done at the beginning of sowing and was supposed to promote the growth of plants. But in a fairy tale, a hero appears and frees the girl from the monster, to whom she was brought to be devoured. In reality, in the era of the existence of the rite, such a “liberator” would have been torn to pieces as the greatest impious, endangering the well-being of the people, endangering the harvest. These facts show that the plot sometimes arises from a negative attitude towards the once former historical reality.

And this plot is subjected to symbolic analysis. The motif of "beauty and the beast" is found for the first time by the ancient Roman philosopher and writer Apuleius in his novel "The Golden Ass", where he included a fairy tale called "Cupid and Psyche". Name main character says that the action takes place in the sphere of the anima - the soul, emotional sphere person. Analyzing fairy tales further, we will see that the feminine is the sphere of emotions, the soul, and the masculine is the sphere of the logos, the mind. A monster, a snake, a dragon is a symbol of chaos, unconscious aggression, instincts that seek to devour the unreasonable maiden - emotions, soul, but the sphere of reason overcomes this negative principle and is freed from it. If we use Freud's terminology, then the Hero is the Self of a person, the conscious rational core of the personality. Knowledge about how to defeat chaos and by what means, how to defeat the monster and free the maiden - the psycho-emotional sphere - gives hero Super-I. The monster itself - It - is a "boiling cauldron of instincts."

Thus, in fairy tales there are historical roots that turn into an objective symbol, accessible to the understanding of every person. In Russia, there was a ritual of baking a baby if he was born prematurely or sickly. The child was smeared with dough - symbolizing the sun's rays, laid on a fork and placed in a warm oven, and when he was taken out, it was believed that he was born again. Here one can draw analogies with the plot where Baba Yaga, taking away the children, seeks to burn them in the furnace, i.e. symbolically reborn.

Propp also comes to the conclusion that not everything in fairy tales can be explained by historical reality, tradition and ritual. So, “if Baba Yaga threatens to eat the hero, this does not mean at all that here we certainly have a remnant of cannibalism. The image of the cannibal yaga could have arisen in another way, as a reflection of some mental, rather than real-everyday images ... In a fairy tale, there are images and situations that obviously do not go back to any reality. Such images include, for example, a winged serpent and a winged horse, a hut on chicken legs, Koshchei, etc.”

Propp attributed these symbols to mental reality.

Mircea Eliade considers the heroes of fairy-tale mythological worlds to be born in the sphere of the subconscious. “The subconscious, as it is called, is much more poetic and philosophical, more mystical than conscious life ... The subconscious is inhabited not only by monsters: gods, goddesses, heroes and fairies also hide there; and the monsters of the subconscious are also mythological, they continue to perform the same functions that are assigned to them in all myths: in the end, they help a person to completely free himself, complete his initiation.

If fairy tales belonged only to historical reality, and the history, traditions and rituals of all peoples are different, then they would not become universal.

The Swiss psychoanalyst, a student of Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz argues that fairy tales are beyond culture, beyond racial differences, they are an international language for all mankind, for people of all ages and all nationalities. Marie-Louise von Franz rejects the theory of the origin of a fairy tale from a ritual, rite, considering the archetypal experience of mankind as the basis of a fairy tale. She considers the origin of both the tale and the ritual to be from archetypal experience. (Example: "The Autobiography of Black Deer, Oglala Sioux American Indian Shaman"). She compares the bewitchment of the characters with a mental illness and liberation from witchcraft - getting rid of the disease. "FROM psychological point vision bewitched hero a fairy tale could be compared with a person whose unified structural organization of the psyche has been damaged and therefore is not able to function normally ... If, for example, the anima of a man is characterized by neurotic properties, then, even if this man himself is not a neurotic, he will still feel bewitched to some extent ... to be bewitched means that some separate structure of the mental complex is damaged or has become unsuitable for functioning, and the whole psyche suffers from this, since the complexes live, so to speak, within a certain social order given by the integrity of the psychic, and this is the reason why we are interested in the motive of enchantment and the means to cure it.

M. Eliade speaks about the imagination, which gives birth to myths and fairy tales, as an integral part of mental health individual and the nation as a whole. “That essential integral part of the human soul, which is called imagination, is washed by the waters of symbolism and continues to live in archaic myths and theological systems ... folk wisdom consistently insists on the importance of the imagination for spiritual health personality, for the balance and richness of his inner life ... Psychologists, and primarily C.-G. Jung, have shown to what extent all dramas modern world depend on a deep discord of the soul-psyche, both individual and collective, a discord caused primarily by the ever-increasing futility of the imagination. To have imagination means to use all one's inner richness, the unceasing and spontaneous boiling of images.