Mara, plow the planes – poetry, magic, ritual

Abstract

Lyric folk poetry, which is based on archaic worldviews, often bases its origins on ritual and magic. Among the lyrics which “copy” and “comment on” the beliefs in certain properties of plants, one poem recorded by Vuk Karadžić has special significance. The poem tells of how a man, knowing about the special properties of flora and being versed in magic as a way of acquiring love in general, tries to cure his beloved from heartache and then lead her to fall in love with him, and ultimately, come and kiss him. A variant of this poem was also recorded and published by S.N. Davidović, and after him Luka Grđić-Bjelokosić, who classified it as a wedding song. The four variants of the poem in question which are the subject of the analysis are an example of transposition of magic into poetry. And while the surface layers contain verbal traces of magic, the traces of magical actions are present throughout the poem, as the analyses show.