SUPERSTITIONS AS A PART OF THE FRAME "PREGNANCY AND BIRTH" IN THE ENGLISH, RUSSIAN, AND MARI LANGUAGES: PART1

The article is the first of two which considers the expression of the frame "pregnancy and birth" in the superstitions of the English, Russian, and Mari languages. Pregnancy is one of the most important periods in the life of every family and especially in the life of a woman. It is one of the rites of passage which gives a woman a new status of a mother and secures her status as a wife. The birth of a child is another rite of passage - the first for everybody in this life - when an immaterial soul becomes a real person. These two events are inextricably linked as the mother is connected with her child. That is why a lot of superstitions are related both to mothers and children. Authors distributed all the superstitions of three languages among three top-level groups: preliminary, 'liminary', and postliminary. The preliminary level includes the slots: 1) predictions (predictions about being or not being pregnant, pieces of advice how to become or not become pregnant, as well as guesses about the gender of children); 2) prohibitions (what the pregnant woman shall do and must not do, and different ways how to protect her from evil spirits). The 'liminary' level gives the advice of what shall or shall not be done during the process of giving the birth to make it easy and successful. All this is presented in folk superstitions which reflect world view of peoples under study.