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- Convenors:
-
Mare Kõiva
(Estonian Literary Museum)
Tatiana Minniyakhmetova (University of Innsbruck)
Irina Stahl (Institute of Sociology, Romanian Academy and University of Bucharest)
Jenny Butler (University College Cork)
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Short Abstract
We invite paper proposals related to nature, animals, and plants in various rituals; examples include but are not limited to balancing rituals, healing rituals, life-cycle rituals, the ritual year, and crisis-solving rituals.
Long Abstract
Ritual Narratives: Animals and Plants in Ritual Contexts [Ritual Year WG – SIEF panel].
We invite paper proposals and discussions related to nature, animals, and plants in various rituals: balancing rituals, healing rituals, life cycle rituals, the ritual year, crisis solving, and other rituals. Since there are virtually few analyses of the current extent, spread, and motivations behind such rituals, the panel has several parallel objectives: First, to review which rituals were dedicated to animals and/or plants and in which ritual plants and/or animals are used “to create social cohesion and connectedness” (H. Whitehouse, The Ritual Animal, Oxford Scholarship Online, 2021) and second, to map out the various types of rituals and festive events related to specific plants and/or animals. Thirdly, we encourage reflections on myths, legends, and other narratives on human and non-human relationships. We aim to host a multidisciplinary and multileveled forum for discussion and debate.
Accepted papers
Session 1 Tuesday 16 June, 2026, -Paper short abstract
Between 2008 and 2020, the speaker worked extensively on European zoomorphism in folklore, focusing particularly on its ritual forms – such as masking, mumming, and carnivals. This paper revisits the author’s main findings in light of more recent scholarship, theories, and critical considerations.
Paper long abstract
European folklore is populated by a plethora of wild men, feral creatures, horned gods, satyrs and devils and other caprine figures. Narratives abound, and so do practices. One of the most common such practices, attested throughout European history and across the European subcontinent, is zoomorphic rituals, that is, rituals in which a person, traditionally a man, wears animal attributes, oftentimes also behaving in a beastly fashion.
The speaker worked extensively on this typology of ritual forms, in the years between 2008 and 2020, focusing on European traditions such as mumming and carnivals, where the motif of zoomorphism is widespread and even foundational, one might say. He worked on the historical origin, development, and more recent manifestations of this motif, analysing its morphological, functional, and structural dimensions. His findings and conclusions were informed be historiographic, iconographic, and ethnographic sources and materials, and upheld by a number of theories borrowed by cultural history, the history of religions, historical anthropology, ethnology, and folkloristics.
This paper aims to revisit the author’s main findings in light of more recent scholarship, theories, and critical considerations.
Paper short abstract
At dawn on Saint George’s Day in the Carpathian Basin, women’s rites for animal protection sacralized agrarian space. Through phenomenology and East-Central European ethnography, this study links embodied ritual ecologies to contemporary reflections on human–nature relations.
Paper long abstract
This paper investigates the ritual practices associated with Saint George’s Day in the Carpathian Basin (Hungary), focusing on how women’s embodied actions transformed agrarian landscapes into sacred spaces. Historically, women crossed dew-laden meadows barefoot, collecting moisture believed to protect livestock, crops, and households. These acts—ranging from fumigating stables with herbs to decorating thresholds with greenery—constituted a dense network of apotropaic and fertility rituals that marked the onset of the pastoral year across East-Central Europe.
Drawing on ethnographic sources and phenomenological frameworks (Eliade, Kohák, Abram), the study emphasizes how gendered bodily movements mediated relations among humans, animals, plants, and elemental forces. Through the sensory and performative dimensions of these rituals, ordinary meadows and domestic spaces were transformed into morally and cosmologically charged landscapes, reflecting cyclical temporality, ecological knowledge, and communal memory. The female body, moving at liminal hours, acted as an intermediary, weaving together material and symbolic networks that reinforced social cohesion and environmental attunement.
The paper further argues that Saint George’s Day rituals reveal a cosmology in which nature was experienced as animate, morally significant, and inseparable from cultural practice, challenging modern dichotomies between humans and the environment. Revisiting these ritual ecologies amid climate crisis and disconnection from the land offers insights into alternative modes of dwelling that integrate embodiment, place, and the more-than-human world. Such perspectives underscore the potential of traditional ritual knowledge to inform contemporary ecological and ethical practices, highlighting the enduring relevance of ritualized engagement with landscapes as sites of protection, renewal, and seasonal transition.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores the cow’s role in Carpathian folk culture as a mediator between the earthly and the sacred, focusing on rituals, beliefs, and narratives from 1987–2019 fieldwork that highlight cattle’s economic, social, and symbolic significance.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the role of the cow in the traditional culture of the Ukrainian Carpathians as a mediator between economic, social, and sacred spheres. Fieldwork materials collected by the author in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Zakarpattia regions between 1987 and 2019 demonstrate that the cow was regarded not only as a vital source of livelihood but also as a symbol of prosperity, reflected in beliefs, rituals, and oral narratives.
Ownership of cattle determined a family’s social status (khudobni), while ritual and narrative practices reinforced this importance. Alongside calendrical customs such as Christmas and Easter celebrations, the spring “turnout to pasture,” and local herdsmen’s festivals, numerous magical practices and charms were aimed at protecting cows and milk from witchcraft, the evil eye, and disease.
At times, livestock approached a sacred status. During the Christmas-tide period, cattle were believed to speak to God, either complaining or praising their owner. In the same season, the ritual introduction of a calf (polaznyk) into the household was thought to bring wealth and good fortune for the year ahead.
By addressing ritual practices and their accompanying narratives, this paper situates cattle within calendrical, magical, and social contexts. In this system of folk belief, the cow emerges as a central mediator between the earthly and the sacred in the worldview of the East Slavic population of the Ukrainian Carpathians.
Paper short abstract
Image of the Cow manifested in the antiquity is retained in the belief narratives as sacred origins and world views of the universe. The Cow remained an essential representation along Dog and Cat, and Bull and Horse in the Generic/Ancestral Symbolism of Udmurt (Russia) and Hindu (India).
Paper long abstract
The symbolism involved in emerging of an image of a ‘Cow-Woman’ which originated in the antiquity and later period has changing perceptive as it retains its original basis in the belief of the involvement of the cow in the sacred origins of the universe. As per the sacred origin of the universe, the mythical deities were originated in the ancient totemistic era, they can be traced back to the agrarian custom, festivals, rituals, and rites etc. The image of the cow is associated to the generic/ancestral symbolism of the Udmurt (Russia) and Hindu (India). This image of the ‘Cow-Woman’ is based on the feminine principle(s) drawn over the period. In terms of the cosmology and origin of the universe, the cow is believed to be the part of the habitation spheres - the elements and celestial bodies, along with the supernatural properties. In traditional households and in families among the Udmurts, cats and dogs hold an important place. The cows, bulls and horses are seen as vital manifestations in traditional households, custom, festivals, popular cultures, rites and rituals, sacred texts, oral traditions of the Hindu. These domestic animals have a rich mythological background, which is vividly expressed in folklore and ethnography. The research findings are based on the comparative study of folkloric, socio-cultural and ethnographic role and function of the ‘Cow-Woman’ in Udmurt and Hindu belief narrative traditions comprising of myths of the spiritual universe of custom, rites and rituals, traditions therein.
Key Words: Animals, Creation Myth, Gender, Orality, Symbolism
Paper short abstract
This paper explores Irish fishermen’s superstitions about fish and the sea during Bealtaine, the Gaelic May festival marking summer’s start. Taking 1930s–40s folkloric accounts as a starting point, it examines rituals, proverbs, beliefs about fish and fishing, & their possible roots in older myths.
Paper long abstract
This paper focuses on Irish fishermen and their beliefs concerning the ocean, fishing, and, more broadly, fish during a specific time of the year: the Gaelic festival of Bealtaine, in early May. These beliefs reflected a heightened fear of the sea and, at the same time, gave rise to superstitions intended to counter those fears, protect fishermen, and instill a welcome sense of hope within the community. Fishing was regarded as especially dangerous on that day, and many communities refrained from going to sea, a fact attested by a variety of proverbs. In certain areas along the western coast of Ireland, boats were adorned with seaweed, rowan rods, or streamers as protective charms; moreover, numerous legends linked to Bealtaine and the ocean recount mystical apparitions such as horses, unknown beasts, mermaids, and even sailing rocks.
This study takes as its starting point the work of the Irish Folklore Commission in the 1930s and 1940s. Its aim is to document the superstitions connected to fish and the ocean, to examine the relationship between these beliefs and their seasonal practice, and to explore their potential origins—possibly in much older Irish myths or even pan-European traditions.
Paper short abstract
This study investigates sheep-related traditions among the BalticFinnic peoples, with particular attention to ritual calendar observances, everyday ritual practices and incantations, their role within masking customs, and their significance in social practices.
Paper long abstract
The presentation examines the transformation of sheep-related traditions in both cultural and ritual contexts, drawing on Estonian archival materials from the 19th–20th centuries, the 2025–2026 research project Sociocultural Perception of Biodiversity Landscapes, and BalticFinnic ethnographic and mythology sources.
Baltic Finnic cultures of the Baltic Sea region, sheep have place in lingustic expressions, in short folkloric forms, norms, and taboos. Sheep played an important role in various calendar festivals marking the beginning and end of the herding season.
Particularly significant were calendar dates related to winter food preparation for sheep, the washing periods, but also magical practices and charms to protect the sheep, or to cure them. They had the role in masking traditions, including the New Year masking in Western Estonia.
Today, the narratives, customs, and beliefs have undergone transformation, yet the value of the sheep—as a companion, pet, and a stabilizing force of the natural landscapes—has increased.
Paper short abstract
The paper explores St. George’s Day in Bulgaria as a remnant of migratory sheep herding traditions. Using archives, interviews, and maps, it argues that the holiday’s prominence reflects the lasting imprint of seasonal pastoral rhythms on local economies, culture, and festive life.
Paper long abstract
While studying St. George’s Day as a local celebration in Bulgarian villages and towns, I asked why these communities concentrated their festive calendar precisely on this date. In the Balkans, as elsewhere, St. George’s Day marks the beginning of the agricultural year, just as St. Demetrius’ Day signals its end. When I asked “why exactly St. George’s Day?” the common reply was “because St. George is the patron of our church.” Yet why he was chosen as patron remained unknown.
In archives and newspapers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, I found numerous traces suggesting that in early May, events linked to migratory sheep herding often took place in these regions. This pastoral practice involved large-scale seasonal movements within the Ottoman Empire and its connected principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia—northward and to mountain pastures in spring, southward to warmer valleys in autumn. It was carried out mainly by Vlachs, Aromanians, and Sarakatsani, but also by many Bulgarian communities in the Rhodope and Balkan mountains. In the Bulgarian case, herds typically remained in village enclosures during the winter, and in spring they were grouped and driven to remote summer pastures.
My hypothesis is that transhumance played such a significant role in local economies and cultures that the prominence of St. George’s Day as a special celebration today is a surviving echo of that seasonal rhythm. Drawing on archival materials, interviews, and maps, my paper will argue for the deep, though now obscured, connection between agrarian practices and contemporary festivity.
Paper short abstract
The presentation will focus on milk measurement customs recorded in four different villages in Romania (Maramureș and Cluj regions), presenting the beliefs associated to plant elements used and believed to ensure the safety of the animals throughout the summer.
Paper long abstract
At the beginning of spring, the sheep start grazing around their owners' houses. After the Feast of St George on 23 April or 1 May (depending on the village's tradition), the owners gather their animals together and form a sheepfold. To calculate and regulate the quantity of milk or cheese that each owner would receive during the summer while the sheep graze in the mountains or on common pastures, the custom of milk measurement is performed. Several gestures are performed on this occasion to protect the animals and shepherds. For example, the sheepfold is adorned with green leaves and flowers, and a tree (usually a fir or birch; this tree is called "the cross" of the sheepfold) is planted in front of the pen where the owners milk the animals. At the start of the milking process, an axe is planted in the ground to protect the sheep from lightning. The presentation will focus on milk measurement customs recorded in four different villages in Romania (three in Maramureș region, and one in Cluj region), presenting the beliefs associated to plant elements used to ensure the safety of the animals throughout the summer.
Paper short abstract
The lily symbolizes purity, innocence, and peace across cultures. In East Slavic Christian tradition, it is linked to the Virgin Mary and key religious feasts. This report explores its role in hymnography, iconography, folklore, and Orthodox rituals.
Paper long abstract
The lily is a flower long associated with purity, innocence, and spiritual beauty. In ancient Eastern cultures and Greek mythology, it symbolized virginity and sanctity. In Christianity, particularly in the East Slavic tradition, the white lily represents youth, chastity, and is closely tied to the Virgin Mary. According to the Gospel of Matthew (6:28–29), Jesus Himself referred to the lilies of the field as symbols of divine care and natural beauty.
Tradition holds that the Archangel Gabriel brought a white lily to Mary at the Annunciation. To this day, Orthodox Christians bring white lilies to church on this feast, often placing them near icons, where they remain until the Dormition. A miracle associated with lilies blooming from dry stems occurs annually on the Greek island of Kefalonia during this time.
The lily also holds healing properties and is used in folk medicine for wounds, inflammation, and to support the immune system. Despite its association with life and purity, the lily is also present in funeral customs, symbolizing peace and eternal rest.
In Slavic folklore and literature, the lily is seen as the embodiment of a pure soul. This report explores its symbolic role in Orthodox hymnography, iconography, and rituals.
Paper short abstract
Gifting and otherwise utilizing lily-of-the-valley in French maying practices is accompanied by a variety of narratives, from the utmost in pithy to lengthy development of perhaps legendary accounts and on to official reports explicitly intended “to create social cohesion and connectedness”.
Paper long abstract
Gifting lily-of-the-valley in French May Day practices is accompanied by a variety of narratives, from pithy to lengthy development of perhaps legendary accounts, and it is important to bear witness to how people-in-the-street, as well as professional suppliers, talk about it. This can run from the most basic conversational remark, through video interviews, field work notes and quotes, and on to representations in diverse media. Giving the flower for May Day is the major custom in a broader spectrum of utilizing the plant in maying practices. Such practices may have to take into account the plant’s calendar rather than the Gregorian. This constraint emphasizes that some ritual events may be hard to carry off, if the major actor does not show up for the performance. These lily-of-the-valley customs partake in “creating social cohesion and connectedness”, even and at times specifically, a sense of identity.
Paper short abstract
The paper explores how, in Slovenia, both traditional and modern plant- and fruit-named festivities reflect the agency of nature, which actively shapes ritual, seasonal, and communal practices through symbolic and material participation.
Paper long abstract
This paper explores how, in Slovenia, both traditional religious festivities and contemporary fruit festivals reveal the agency of nature in shaping local ritual and festive practices. In some regions, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary (August 15th) is closely tied to the blessing of herbs and flowers, a rite in which plants are not only symbolic but active participants in mediating sacred and seasonal transitions. Nature—through its material presence in the form of gathered flora—acts as a conduit of divine protection, healing, and community cohesion.
In parallel, the emergence of modern fruit festivals, celebrating e. g. cherries, apples, or strawberries etc., reflects how specific plants and fruits continue to co-define local identities, economies, and temporalities. These festivals are not merely human cultural constructs but also responses to natural cycles, harvest rhythms, and the material agency of plants themselves.
Following Ingold’s (2000) relational ecology, Descola’s (2013) critique of the nature–culture divide, and Milton’s (2002) environmental subjectivities, this paper approaches nature as a co-agent in human social life. Plants and fruits are not passive symbols but actants embedded in dynamic networks of meaning, practice, and identity.
By focusing on plant- and fruit-named festivities, the paper highlights how nature is not only represented but participates in the shaping of communal life—ritually, socially, and symbolically—thereby reinforcing the entangled agency of human and non-human actors.
Paper short abstract
This paper investigates the symbolism, beliefs and practices connected to plants used in various religious rituals of the Romanian Orthodox Church, and performed during specific holidays, as well as with flowers brought to church by faithful, particularly during pilgrimages and saints’ celebrations.
Paper long abstract
Plants are omnipresent in Orthodox ecclesiastical spaces and the religious rituals which are performed. Religious paintings and sculptures, the vestments of the clergy, liturgical objects and vessels are all adorned with floral patterns. Among the gifts the faithful bring to church are fresh flowers. Offering flowers is considered a beautiful and generous gesture, meant to please God and the saints. Flowers are brought by pilgrims, when visiting the relics of saints. Some are left behind to adorn the canopy that shelters the relics; others are taken home after being touched to the relics. Many religious events involve specific plants in the rituals: basil is used during the Epiphany, willow branches during Palm Sunday, walnut branches during Pentecost. Their symbolic value add meaning to the rituals performed by the clergy, which in return confer them with protective and healing properties. The fresh flowers and plants brought back from church service, feast or pilgrimage are often placed next to icons or home altars; some are kept all year around. If touched to the relics, flowers are infused with healing properties; they are made into tea and drank, or even burned, the smoke being considered curative. Touched by the holy, they are not to be blended with ordinary garbage, but given back to nature. This investigation is mainly, but not exclusively, based on fieldwork carried out in Bucharest since 2010, combined with data drown from various studies and ethnographic collections.
Paper short abstract
This study analyzes a specific funerary custom performed in rural communities of Moldova region (NE Romania), during the feast of Saint Elijah, when a branch of a fruit tree (sour cherry, plum, apple, etc.) is adorned and placed at the graves of recently deceased.
Paper long abstract
This study investigates a specific funerary ritual performed in rural communities of Moldava region, NE Romania. On the feast of Saint Elijah, families adorn a branch of a fruit tree (usually apple or plum), which they then place at the grave of a recently deceased relative. Loaded with bread, fruits, sweets, clothes, and various household objects, the branch, called the tree, is meant to bring peace to the departed soul, serving as an intercession for the forgiveness of sins and as an affirmation of the continuity of life in the mythical dimension.
The study interprets the pomana tree as a variant of the cosmic Tree of Life, an axis mundi connecting the earthly and transcendent realms, also embodying a distinct symbolic value tied to the power of regeneration and the idea of rebirth, in which the human destiny is intertwined with the vegetal world.
Fieldwork was carried out in 2022 through direct observation, photography, and semi-structured interviews with community members. It revealed that the funerary tree of St. Elijah is a culturally embedded ritual practice, functioning as a communal identity marker in which each element fulfills a symbolic role, thereby sustaining the continuity and resilience of local tradition. In 2025, the practice was included in the Romanian National Register of the Intangible Cultural Heritage under the name of ‘ The Tree of Saint Elijah’ custom.
Paper short abstract
Following elaborate protocols, one may be able to locate and extract the elusive fern bloom on midsummer night. An entryway to a wider reflection on the widespread ritualisation of behaviour imposed by the picking of plants in certain ceremonial or magical contexts, starting with Romanian examples.
Paper long abstract
One of the most archaic plants in the world, ferns occupy a rich magical and mythical imaginary vivid in numerous beliefs in Romania. Throughout European mythology and imaginary, though, there is a well documented common awe around the elusive flowering fern, a biological impossibility. Exclusively blooming during summer solstice night, it is believed to bestow supernatural powers upon its gatherer: invisibility, wealth, the gift of reading minds or understanding animal language, luck in love and many more.
The entire journey to it, as it is recounted in documented testimonies from the Romanian space (Florea Marian, Pavelesvu, Olinescu, Olteanu and others) entails intricate prescriptions and encoded protocols that start with the prerequisite for purity (chastity) of the claimer and end with its safe deposit in - as detailed as - the colour of the handkerchief. Briefly, the entire human presence, mind and body, must enter a demanding, precisely paced state of attunement, focus and perseverance in order to find, approach, safely take hold and extract it.
The picking of the precious flower is the subject of my presentation, but only as an entryway to a wider reflection on the ritualized behaviour imposed by the collecting of certain plants in certain contexts within rural collectivities. The symbolic communication requires elaborate behavioral prescriptions - specific systems of actions, gestures, body positions, movement and overall presence, which reveal and reinforce cultural worldviews and human-nature relationships.
Paper short abstract
This paper explores the symbolism of plants and water in Midsummer’s Eve (St. John’s) celebrations in Lithuania Minor. It analyses ritual practices of the Lietuvininkai, tracing transformations from pre-Christian times to modern festival models.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the role of plants and water in the ritual narratives of Midsummer’s Eve (St. John’s) celebrations in Lithuania Minor, an ethnographic region with a distinct cultural identity. Based on historical sources, ethnographic records, and folklore, the study highlights how natural elements - herbs, flowers, dew, rivers, lakes, and ritual fires - functioned as central symbolic agents in practices of healing, fertility, divination, and protection. Particular attention is given to the ,,Lietuvininkai", an ethnic Lithuanian group, whose calendrical traditions combined pre-Christian solstice rites with Christian influences and later underwent transformations shaped by urban culture, political change, and commercialization. The paper outlines three models of festive practice: archaic (15th–19th centuries), transitional (late 19th–20th century), and contemporary (post-1990), showing how rituals such as wreath-floating, dew-bathing, and herbal gathering were reinterpreted or reinvented. By comparing regional practices in Lithuania Minor with wider European Midsummer traditions, the analysis reveals both shared cultural archetypes and unique local expressions. Ultimately, the study demonstrates how natural elements serve as carriers of memory, continuity, and identity within ritual contexts, while also reflecting processes of cultural adaptation in modern society.