Linguistic and cultural features of the "magic objects" in Russian and Chinese fairy tales

Chzhou Yuitsze Postgraduate student, Department of Russian Language, MSU-SPI University in Shenzhen, Lomonosov Moscow State University 518100, Kitai, provintsiya Guandun, g. Shen'chzhen', ul. Gotszidasyueyuan', 1 821464739@qq.com Other publications by this author

Language is a repository of culture and a means of its expression. Language and culture are two semiotic systems studied by linguocultural conceptology, a science where the connection of language and culture reflected in human consciousness is considered and studied in symbiosis. The main unit of research in this science is the concept – "a term that serves to explain the units of mental or mental resources of our consciousness and the information structure that reflects human knowledge and experience" ^{[1, p. 93]}. S.S. Neretina understands the concept as "a product of human cognitive activity" ^{[2, p. 141]}. In her opinion, the concept is a form of thinking that reflects the basic attributes of things. V.I. Karasik defines the concept as "mental formations that represent significant conscious typed fragments of experience stored in a person's memory" ^{[3, p. 91, 4, p. 3]}. Together, the concepts form a conceptual picture of the world.

The folklore picture of the world captured in fairy tales is a fragment of the conceptual picture of the world of an ethnos, it is "realized as one of the hypostases, one of the embodiments of the picture of the world of traditional folk culture" ^{[5, p. 11]}. In this regard, scientists distinguish a special branch of scientific knowledge – folklore conceptology, which is "part of linguistic conceptology that arose within the framework of anthropocentric linguistics at the junction of linguoculturology and cognitive linguistics" and studies "folklore concepts as specific mental entities and their connections in the folklore-language picture of the world" ^{[6, pp. 13-14]}.

Studies of monuments of oral folk art indicate that folklore should be approached "as a certain system of worldview and folk ideas" ^{[7, p. 48]}. The folklore world, according to scientists, "represents one of the varieties of mentality, a collective picture of the world, traditional folk culture, imprinted in the poetic and prosaic memory of the people" ^{[8, p. 13]}. The features of the folklore picture of the world are embodied in linguistic forms – in the folklore-linguistic picture of the world, which is "the embodiment of the national worldview in linguistic form, in linguistic stereotypes" ^{[9, p. 10]}.

The study of the ontological essence of fairy tale concepts in the comparative aspect makes it possible to reveal the originality of the national folklore-linguistic picture of the world of different linguistic cultures, the peculiarities of their lexico-semantic representations.

The concept sphere of the miracle is dominant in the fairy tales of all peoples. However, in the culture of each nation, it is nationally colored.

The main means of the miracle concept sphere is the miracle token. In the dictionary of V.I. Dahl, this word is interpreted as "a miracle, an extraordinary thing or phenomenon, an accident; unexpected and contrary to a foreseeable possibility, barely feasible" ^{[10, p. 612]}. The following meanings are distinguished in the "Historical and Etymological Dictionary of the modern Russian language": "Miracle – 1. Supernatural, inexplicable phenomenon. 2. Something striking, surprising in its strangeness" ^{[11, p. 395]}. The "Etymological Dictionary of the modern Russian language" notes its origin: "A miracle is from the general–sl. chuti "to hear, to feel" from keudo, koudo "magician"" ^{[12, p. 474]}. From the above definitions, it is clear that the word "miracle" contains such components of meaning as "uniqueness", "rarity", "magic". Thus, the core of the concept of a miracle is some phenomenon or objects that have magical, supernatural, unusual power. The fairy tale is magical because it has something that is not in ordinary life. However, according to E.A. Kostyukhin: "the miraculous in fairy tales is not at all a figment of idle imagination: what seems incredible to us today was a reality for mythological thinking" ^{[13, p. 96]}.

"The conceptual picture of the world of each nation, like a canvas, is woven from a variety of concepts" ^{[14, p. 95]}. In the miracle concept sphere, several concepts can be distinguished that form the "miracle" concept sphere: actions and processes, objects of magic, wizards. In this article we will focus only on the concept of "objects of magic".

In the Russian fairy-tale world, all sorts of magical objects appear before the reader, for example: living and dead water, rejuvenating apples, frog skin, magic lamp, carpet, flying boots, self-made tablecloth, etc.; in Chinese - (bull skin), (magic brush), (five–color stone), (flat peach), (magic lantern), (golden bottom), etc. The named items are not just magic items: these objects are carriers of certain values and ideas of the Russian and Chinese peoples.

Let's consider the objects of magic, whose functions in Russian and Chinese fairy tales are similar: they are able to transform a person and objects:

These items are found in the texts of such Russian and Chinese fairy tales: "Ivan Tsarevich and the Gray Wolf", "The Frog Princess", "The Tale of a Brave Young man, rejuvenating apples and living water", "The Sea King and Vasilisa the Wise", "Marya Morevna"; ?,,,,, ("Shell Fairy", "Shooting at the sun", "Leaky Firmament", "Magic Brush", "Niulan and Jinyu").

All Russians know living and dead water. Since ancient times, people have believed in the miraculous power of water. But only in Russian folklore water is endowed with magical power: it can give life and bring death. The adjectives "alive" and "dead" are used in everyday language as a definition for animate nouns, while in a fairy tale they form a phrase with an inanimate noun. In the fairy tale, the adjectives "alive" and "dead" in combination with the noun "water" indicate not a sign of water, but its function – the ability to revive a person and grant him heroic strength.

It would seem that living and dead water are two opposite forces. However, in fairy tales, these forces act according to each other. Dead water in fairy tales, as a rule, does not kill anyone, it heals wounds, thanks to it the severed parts of the body grow together. Dead water is even able to return lost body parts to the hero. Living water revives a person, breathes life into a person only after a person is sprinkled with dead water. Thus, only after death, having passed the test of death, the hero gains strength and becomes invincible: "the gray wolf took the bubbles, tore the crow in two, sprayed it with dead water – and that crow fused, sprayed with live water — the crow woke up and flew. Then the gray wolf sprayed Prince Ivan with dead water - his body was fused, sprayed with living water – Prince Ivan stood up and said: "Ah, how long I slept!"" ^{[15, p. 343]}. According to the point of view of A.N. Afanasyev, "dead water is sometimes called healing, and this last epithet is clearer and generally expresses the meaning connected with it; dead or healing water heals the wounds inflicted, splices together the dissected members of a dead body, but does not yet resurrect it; it heals the corpse, i.e. makes it whole, but leaves him lifeless, dead, until sprinkling with living (or living) water restores his life. In the legends of the folk epic, the slain heroes are first sprinkled with dead water, and then with live water" ^{[16, p. 102]}.

Rejuvenating apples have a similar function: they transform the hero, restoring his health and youth. Rejuvenating apples grow in gardens guarded by evil wizards, usually Kashchei the Immortal or Serpent Gorynych. Rejuvenating apples are not very appetizing outwardly, but their result exceeds all expectations: "if an old man eats this apple, he will become younger" ^{[17, p. 349]}.

The main meaning of the adjective "rejuvenating" is returning youth, making young. The root of this word is "young", the suffixes "il" and "n", "y" are the ending. The Russian word "apple" arose as a result of the addition of the prosthetic initial "j" to praslav. *ablko; the latter is formed using the suffix -bk – from the late Indo—European basis *ablu - "apple". The word "apple" in Slavic languages, in particular, in Russian, is one of the most ancient. And this, perhaps, explains the reason that in fairy tales the fruit is usually an apple. In ancient times, the apple was considered a symbol of fertility, health, love, beauty. For many peoples, an apple is an unusual fruit, it is the fruit of the tree of life and therefore symbolizes life, birth, immortality.

Living water, dead water and rejuvenating apples are objects that do not exist in reality, in the real world. They are fictional folk fantasy, that is, fictional objects are endowed with magical power.

 Frog skin, unlike living and dead water, as well as rejuvenating apples, is a real object. However, it acquires a magical function only in the context of a fairy tale: putting on a frog skin, a girl turns into a frog, throwing it off – into a girl. In the fairy tale "The Frog Princess" we read: "she put him to bed, and she threw off the frog skin - and turned into a soul—maiden, Vasilisa the Wise" ^{[18, p. 265]}.

In Russian fairy tales, on the example of the examples given, magic objects are often formed on the basis of phrases. The leading role in their formation is played by adjectives naming the function of an object or its external feature. Usually these adjectives stand before the word being defined and together with it form stable phrases that have not only pictorial, but also evaluative functions.

In Chinese fairy tales, like frog skin, there is bull skin (). But the function of bovine skin is different from frog skin. Bull skin in Chinese fairy tales helps the hero to fly. In the fairy tale "Nyulan and Jinyu" (""), for example, a situation is described when an old bull says to a hero whose wife flew to heaven: "after I die, take off my skin and put it on, and you can fly to heaven to find Jinyu." When the bull died, Nyulan cried for a long time, then tore off the bull's skin. Wearing a bullskin, he flew to heaven with his two children and met his wife there ^{[19, p. 117]}. The hieroglyph , which stands for bovine skin, in Chinese consists of two parts. ? means bullish (here in Chinese there is an abbreviation of the hieroglyph, which is a composite part of Chinese adjectives), ?– skin. As in the case of the phrase "frog skin" in Russian, we are not given to understand the function of "bull skin" outside of the fairy-tale context. But bovine skin in Chinese is semantically related to the function it performs. In Chinese culture, bridges, boats, and rafts made of bovine leather in the form of interconnected bags were used to cross from one bank to the other. The bovine skin container was inflated by a person like a balloon, bags were tied. And the ferry is ready. It is difficult to inflate such a bag. Easier said than done. It's not for nothing that in Chinese, bragging literally means "inflating a bull's skin." In China, it is believed that the bull is a very faithful animal. In ancient times, a man who killed a bull was sent to prison. The faithful and diligent bull personified people's love for work and the expectation of a peaceful, well-fed life. In the fairy tale, the bull has magical power, his skin is also magical. Thousands of years ago, the bull was considered a supernatural being. Hence arose the totemic worship of the bull.

– The "five-color stone" is one of the famous Chinese magic items. Literally, this hieroglyph means a stone that has five colors: white, green, azure, red and yellow. In Chinese, these colors mean "wu xing" – the five elements, that is, the basic elements of nature: metal, wood, water, fire, earth. In the fairy tale "The Leaky Firmament", his heroine Nyuva, when the firmament collapsed, and heat seeped through huge holes to the ground, and underground waters poured into the earth, and Fire and Water combined, destroying all living things, collected colorful stones to patch up the firmament. She worked for eighty-one whole days. And finally the work was finished. And since the stones were multicolored, dawn and a rainbow appeared in the sky ^{[20, p. 86]}. 

– The "Magic Brush" consists of two hieroglyphs, one of which is the definition, the other is the name of the object. In the fairy tale, everything that the hero named Malyan depicts with a magic brush given to him by a white–bearded old man becomes a reality. For example, the lantern that Malyan depicted, coming off the paper, immediately lit up and illuminated the entrance to the village ^{[21, p. 58]}. In addition to objects, Malyan also painted animals. One day, Malyan painted on the wall a large rooster with a blood-red crest, golden feathers and a dark green tail. The rooster, as soon as the drawing was finished, flew off the paper and flew away ^{[22, p. 61]}. The heroes of Chinese fairy tales themselves do not possess magical powers, these powers appear as a result of the possession of magical objects.

In Russian fairy tales, unlike Chinese fairy tales, magic objects are repeated. In Chinese fairy tales, magic objects are always different. This is due to the fact that in Russian fairy tales, the hero is a collective image, so the same magic remedy is often present in fairy tales. Russian Russian fairy tales, it is necessary to note two more features of magical objects in Chinese fairy tales against the background of Russian fairy tales: firstly, in Chinese fairy tales, ordinary things always act as magical means, which become magical in a fairy tale, while in Russian fairy tales, objects that have no analogues in real life are more common. Secondly, Chinese heroes receive magic items after overcoming all kinds of difficulties, or they are given by the gods for noble deeds. These magical items have magic only in the hands of kind people. If they fall into the hands of evil people, then the magic disappears. For example: in the fairy tale "Magic Brush" in the hands of evil people, a drawing cannot turn into a real thing. In Russian fairy tales, magical items are usually received by heroes not for previous merits, not as a reward for good deeds. In Chinese fairy tales, the hero himself is much more important, his noble deeds, he is the center of the fairy tale, and everything else is of secondary importance.

 The source of the appearance of magical objects in fairy tales is closely connected with primitive beliefs, with fetishism, that is, with the cult of inanimate things, expressed in the deification of these things, blind worship of them. In ancient times, people, meeting with failures or troubles that they could not overcome, tried to turn to other, supernatural, forces. People invented magic objects. These objects were the embodiment of people's desire for a happy life. Genetically related to primitive magic, magic objects reflect in the fairy tale the folk dream of wonderful helpers and form an integral part of the concept sphere of the miracle in the Russian and Chinese folklore-language pictures of the world.

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