LE SYMPOSIUM INTERNATIONAL LE LIVRE. LA ROUMANIE. L ...

332 eMil ŢÎrcoMnicu
gives as alms a ring dance in the memory of the deceased. It is known
that the custom is spread in oltenia and Banat, as well as in timoc, in
Serbia and in Bulgaria. here there are fragments of the interview: “When
the easter comes everybody offers alms. on easter it is offers ring dance
[to commemorate somebody]. they ask relatives and buy for everybody
a present. the relatives of the deceased [dance] are later joined by other
people. egg, sponge cake, money in an envelope, is offered [to them by the
close relatives of the deceased]. to others, aprons, shirts, food, drinks and
towels. to the fiddler, towels, food, drinks. they play whatever you, the
one who offer the ring dance, ask. usually [they play] we call it Cuconiţă
de pe ţară. [this happened] on the second day [of the easter] when there
are no other funeral customs. to whoever died young. [A relative] carries
his/her portrait, to be seen” 14 .
Another example is the dittany custom. handicapped youths, popularly
called “hit by the wicked fairies” at Ispas (Ascension), in timoc on the
second day of the easter are taken to be cured in a clearing, a special place
where the dittany, plant with therapeutical qualities blooms, believing that
the powers of the plant will cure them. this custom in found in Dolj county
but across the Danube too, in the villages from timoc in Bulgaria.
“here [in Albotina clearing] there is a custom from thracians times,
the dittany is called. the dittany is a very fragrant plant, a plant with leaves
alike those of the common maple or I don’t know how it is named. And
this plant is picked up on the day of the dittany only, the second day of the
easter. the people believe that whoever comes and picks up the plant in the
second day of the easter, if sick, will be cured” 15 .
Dresul mortului [the magic acts for preventing the dead to turn into a
ghost], custom to show the way to the soul in order not to turn into a ghost
appears in all researched villages between Şiştov and lom. in the last ones,
the name of the ghost is different, strigoi not moroi.
“It is dres [magically put right] with spindles, they go at the cemetery,
after a week, on Sunday. She goes, a woman who knows how to exorcise
there. She exorcises and puts three spindles with garlic, with little rock,
with something else. She put them through fire, charms them and thrusts
the spindles there. he/she will not turn into ghost anymore. She put the
garlic through fire. «When this garlic will spring, then and not even then
x becomes ghost». And she burns those spindles in the fire. «When this
14 th interview done by Emil ţîrcomnicu on 2009, june 13 , with fiddlers from
Tianovţi and Gânzovo villages, Bulgaria.
15 th interview done by Emil ţîrcomnicu on 2009, june 27 , with Ivo Gheoghiev,
rabrovo village, Bulgaria.