The Tale Of God As A Prayer, A Charm, A Fairy Tale

Abstract

The goal of this article is to epistemologically discuss the couple “folk prayer” and “charm” in the specific case of the narrative incantations whose main protagonist is a holy figure. In this regard, I have chosen a certain structure known among Romanians as “The Tale of God”, “The Mother of God prayer” or “The Mother of God charm”, which agglutinates episodes from Virgin Mary cycle of apocrypha legends together with images that depict scenes of divination and bibliomancy performed in a consecrated but uncommon space (e.g., a church with nine altars). The text also presents structural and functional similarities with the “Dream of the Mother of God”, especially as respects the Passions disclosure and the formalized ending demands for ritual delivering the ‘story’ under certain conditions of time, space and performance.
In the beginning, the analysis focuses on those aspects that predispose this prayer to embed references to charming incantations and practices, as well. Then, based on ethnographic references, the discussion goes towards the process of putting the ‘prayer’ in practice within a story telling event which, at its turn, is assigned with devotional purposes and magic finalities.
In the end, emic terms of ‘faith’ and ‘emotion’ are taken into consideration as pertinent parameters to (self)evaluating of faith, sacred communication and expectations that go beyond both theological and ethnological etic distinctions.