Ursitoare

The three Ursitoare, in Romanian mythology, are supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. They are most similar to the Roman Parcae, the Latin equivalent of the Greek Fates or Moirai.^[1]

The Fates appearing to baptize children has been part of Romanian tradition for hundreds of years. In recent years there has been a "physical materialization" too of this tradition through the show presented during the name party.

Names

Fieldwork in the Oltenia region found dialectal variations of their names: ursătóri(le), ursitóri(le), ursătoáre(le).^[2] Similarly, their most common names are ursitori and ursitoare. The great variety in their names, according to Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, attests the "ancient popularity" of the belief.^[3]

Role

According to ethnologist Pauline Schullerus (fr), the Ursitoari comes at night to the newborn's cradle and weaves their fate.^[4]

Parallels

Scholarship indicates that similar beings (a trio of women that allot men's fates) also exist in South Slavic folklore, among the Serbians, Macedonians,^[5] Croatians, Bulgarians and Montenegrinians.^[6]^[7] The Roman Parcae also were a trio.

References

Notes

^ Ristic 2008, pp. 44.
^ Golant 2013, p. 97
^ Brednich 2016, p. 1398
^ Schullerus, Pauline (1977). Rumänische Volksmärchen aus dem mittleren Harbachtal (in German). Bukarest: Kriterion. pp. 357–362.
^ Petreska, Vesna (2006). "Demons of Fate in Macedonian Folk Beliefs". In Gábor Klaniczay; Éva Pócs (eds.). Christian Demonology and Popular Mythology. Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press. pp. 221-236 [221-222]. doi:10.1515/9786155211010-017. The demonic beings that designate the destiny at the birth of a child are known in Macedonia as narechnitsi, sudienitsi, urechnici or rechenitsi. A characteristic feature of the narechnitsi is their anthropomorphized appearance. They are females — three women, maidens or sisters ...
^ Golant 2013, p. 97
^ Pócs, Éva (1998). "The Belief Figure of the Witch". Between the Living and the Dead: A Perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age. Budapest, Hungary: Central European University Press. p. 37-58 [56n71]. doi:10.1515/9786155225307-004. 71. Greek moira, Serbian, Croatian, and Bulgarian urisnici, nerusnici, and sudnice or sudjenice, Slovenian rojenice, Romanian ursitoare, ursaie, Albanian fatite, or fatije, and others.

Bibliography

Brednich, Rolf Wilhelm [in German] (2016) [2004]. "Schicksalsfrauen" [Fates]. In Rolf Wilhelm Brednich; Heidrun Alzheimer; Hermann Bausinger; Wolfgang Brückner; Daniel Drascek; Helge Gerndt; Ines Köhler-Zülch; Klaus Roth; Hans-Jörg Uther (eds.). Enzyklopädie des Märchens Online. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. p. 1398. doi:10.1515/emo.11.244.
Golant, Natalia (2013). "Reprezentări mitologice ale românilor din Oltenia (pe baza cercetărilor de teren efectuate în judeţele Vâlcea, Gorj şi Mehedinţi)" [Mythological Representations of Romanians of Oltenia (Based on Field Researches Undertaken in the Counties of Vâlcea, Gorj and Mehedinţi)]. Anuarul Muzeului Etnografic al Moldovei [The Yearly Review of the Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia] (in Romanian). XIII.
Ristic, Radomir (2008), "The great spirits of fate", The Crooked Path (2), Pendraig Publishing, ISBN 9780979616891