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« 2025. # 5 (185)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2025. № 5 (185), 1140—1152

UDK398.344:391.98 (477.8-89 Бой)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/

TO DRESS OUT LIKE A COW FOR ST. GEORGE’S DAY: RITUALS WITH WREATHS IN THE BOYKO’S TRADITION

SEREBRYAKOVA Olena

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1039-2920
  • Candidate of Historical Sciences (= Ph.D. in history),
  • Senior researcher of the department of Modern Ethnology 
  • at the Ethnology Institute
  • of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: o-sereb@ukr.net

Abstract. The aim of the article is to highlight the layer of customary and ritual, worldview phenomena associated with magic rites of household activities on the territory of Boyko’s region. The information obtained during field research on the territory of Boykivshchyna region is introduced into scientific circulation, systematized and analyzed.

The object of the research is the conventional worldview and customary-ritual culture of the residents of Boykivshchyna region; the subject is the archaic custom of decorating live-stock with wreaths, which existed among the Boykos during the spring and summer holidays. The ceremonial time, place and the performers of magic actions (cow, bull, calf, ox, shepherds, hostess, host etc.) are set. The local differences, interpretations, beliefs, custom instructions are characterized. The choice of plants for weaving wreaths, beliefs in their magic properties, ways of making and keeping ritual attributes are also worth attention. Examples of contact and verbal magic are given which represent details about the different stages of the custom. The existence of additional rituals for improving the quality of milk have been found. The actional level, semantics and peculiar motivations of the studied magic custom are revealed. The analysis shows that the ritual phenomenon had a protective and productive functions.

The basis of the article are the materials of the field research, local history essays, works of the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. 

The methodology of this research is based on general scientific methodological principles and the basic requirements that apply to the works of historical and ethnological direction. 

Keywords: Boykivshchyna, magic, wreaths, live-stock, ritual shepherd songs.

Received 20.08.2025

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