Binary Oppositions in Celtic Cosmology: Modern Breton Folklore Data (Бинарные оппозиции в кельтской космологии: на материале современного бретонского фольклора)
Anna Muradova
Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract
The archaic mythology of Celts like the other pagan cosmologic systems is based on binary oppositions e.g. light and darkness, “our world” and the Otherworld. The comparative reconstruction of the basic concepts of the pre-Christian mytho-poetical tradition is in most cases based on the Old Irish text. Nevertheless, Breton folklore texts (often neglected because of their modernity) can be useful for further reconstruction of the opposition “light – dark”, “our world – otherworld”. The fact of the existence of such oppositions like one of the first steps of the human mind on the way of understanding the world and structuring the society was observed by ethnologists, psychologists and comparative linguists.