Author: Borislava Petkova
Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv
Published in Slavyanski dialozi, XIX, 2022, 30
Abstract: This article focuses on one of the Bible’s key narratives of God’s efforts in the creation of man, tracing the reverberations of the canonical narrative in a folkloric context. The focus of the analysis is based on a Bulgarian folk legend recorded in Shtip in the nineteenth century, in which the central motif concerns the creation of woman from the devil’s tail. The analysis attempts to trace and derive the roots of the motif, referring to a strongly developed and persistently anchored in а folklore context dualistic model of the world. It is inherited from archaic dualistic notions, which, undergoing transformation processes of varying intensity, settled and existed in a Bogomilist environment. They have ermeated and anchored themselves in a folkloric environment ever since, producing various folk legends that move decidedly away from the canonical text, creating new explanations of the world where man lives.
Keywords: dualism, Bogomilism, folklore, legends, Сreation