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Where Does the Vila Live? Returning to a Simple Question

2023; Routledge; Volume: 134; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0015587x.2022.2093966

1469-8315

Dorian Jurić,

Linguistics and language evolution

AbstractThis article traces the history of scholarly analysis of the South Slavic vila. By asking a simple question, ‘where does the vila live?’, I return to that scholarship to weed out problematic older theories and clarify historical conjecture. I offer a refinement of the analysis of origin by returning to the art and assertions of nineteenth- and twentieth-century peasant storytellers, singers, and other tradition-bearers. AcknowledgementsI owe great thanks to Dr Naomi McPherson and Dr John Colarusso for their comments on early drafts, as well as to my anonymous reviewers and the editors of Folklore for their careful attention and suggestions. Thanks also go to the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts for use of their archival materials. Funding for the initial research informing this article was provided by The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (767-2015-1599) and McMaster University. An early version of the article was presented at the 2021 Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.Notes1 The figures referred to here as vila kin are Eastern European cognates who follow similar patterns of depiction and behaviour to the vila—the Bulgarian samovila and samodiva, Macedonian juda, Eastern Slavic rusalka, and so on (Jurić Citation2019, 8). I employ Barber’s clever collective term ‘willies’ when discussing her work.2 There are two mountain terms in BCMS (Bosnian–Croatian–Montenegran–Serbian). Planine are high, rock-peaked mountains, while gore are lower, forested mountains. Vila epithets reflect the divide.3 I use ‘story-pattern’, from the Oral Formulaic School, to denote traditional, patterned storylines in oral traditions, while the more common ‘motif’ denotes patterned behaviour of various figures or stock character types; see Jurić (Citation2019, 55–59; Citation2020, 6).4 Suzana Marjanić assesses the importance of Nodilo’s work in a series of publications. A good starting place is Marjanić (Citation2018).5 Etymology of the vila’s name has been highly contested. Nodilo (Citation2003, 255) revived Afanas’ev’s (1869, 153) etymology, deriving vila from the verb viti (to twist or wind) which reflects her dancing and celestial activity. Veselovskiĭ (Citation1889, 287–97) derived her name from two roots, the Latin dies violae (a March festival for celebrating the dead [see below]) and, through an older proto-Slavic form *vela, a proposed Indo-European *u̯el meaning ‘to perish’ (see criticism in Čajkanović Citation1994, 5: 229; Máchal Citation1891, 123; cf. Watkins Citation2000 s.v. welә-2). Mansikka (Citation1967, 153 n. 3) also suggested a thanatic etymology but through Turkish loan: Ottoman Turkish ül (to die) with such derived forms as the Turko-Tatar улек/ülek (corpse, dead person). Niederle (Citation1916, 60), working from Miklosich’s theory, suggested a root in an old Slavic verb vilneja ‘to frolic/wander/go unbound’, derived from a root vil- ‘to be obsessed/disturbed/mad’. Vakarelski merged this last etymology with Afanas’ev’s (Citation1969, 232), while Schneeweis (Citation2005, 37) rightly saw it as secondary and derived (thus Czech vilý ‘disturbed’ and Pol. wiła ‘fool, mad’ denote people driven mad by vile). He proposed, instead, an ‘Indogerman’ etymology *u̯ēi̯ā ‘wind’ with *u̯ēi̯eti ‘to blow’, suggesting that her wind-spirit traits were original (cf. Derksen Citation2008 s.v. *vě̀jati). Potebnja (later supported by Máchal) gave the root vi, drawn from virae, or vires, Roman demons associated with nymphs in inscriptions (Máchal Citation1891, 123; Niederle Citation1916, 60 n. 2; Schneeweis Citation2005, 37), while Petar Skok suggested *vidla, relating ‘vila’ to terms like vještica (witch) for magical entities (Skok Citation1973, 593). Recently, John Colarusso (in Jurić Citation2010a, 173; 2019, 8 n. 5) has offered PIE *wi-l-ā, the *wi- designating ‘holy, or ghostly’, *-l- as a diminutive, and *-ā as a feminine ending, that is ‘little holy/supernatural woman’. See further Niederle (Citation1916, 60 n. 2).The Bulgarian compounds samovila and samodiva combine vila and diva (linked to IE *dyēus in the feminine, ‘goddess’) with the word samo (‘just/only’, or possibly ‘true/real’). Following Miklosich, most have connected the name rusalka to the Latin Rosalia festival (Gk roisalia) (Pócs Citation1989, 17 n. 46; Zečević Citation1981, 35), but Barber and Colarusso have argued for a native Slavic origin in the root rus-/ros- found in various hydronyms (Barber Citation2013, 98; see also Zečević Citation1981, 35–36).6 Note the echoes of Zoranić (Citation1964, 62 and 90) and Baraković (1964, 209) elaborated below.7 Baraković was writing at a time of rising interest in vernacular folk song and its collection. He even included an authentic folk song (the Bugarštica Majka Margarita [Mother Margarita]) in his work (Baraković Citation1964, 333–37; see also his narrator’s song at 208).8 A thorough analysis of Krauss’s personal papers would clarify much. Most are held in the Charles E. Young Research Library at UCLA and still represent an under-utilized resource.9 Five classes of vila origin exist: (1) they grow from dew on plants; (2) they are spirits of the dead, specifically maidens, or the unbaptized (Kemp Citation1935, 54; Pócs Citation1989, 17; Schneeweis Citation2005, 38; cf. Barber Citation1997, 8–9); (3) they are birthed by vile in a human manner (T. R. Đorđević Citation1953, 71 and 73; Jurić Citation2019, 73, 83, 125, 126, 151–53, 272, 280, and 302); (4) they are fallen angels, children of Adam and Eve, or another product of biblical times cursed by God/Jesus to live on the peripheries of the world (T. R. Đorđević Citation1953, 70–72; Jurić Citation2019, 261–63); and (5) rarer tales tell of human maidens transformed into vile (Bošković-Stulli Citation1975, 95; Lovrenčević Citation1970, 79; Pavlinović Citation1876, song 543; Valjavec Citation1890, 47–48). Vrčević offers a dual conception where labour matches that of humans, but impregnation is vegetal through dew and sunlight (Vrčević Citation1876, 87). Like Palestinian Jinn (Rothenberg Citation2004, 102–20), Sicilian dona de fuera (Henningsen Citation1990, 195 and 202), and other cognate figures, the vile are often said to be a foreign import, generally from the East (Bošković-Stulli Citation1975, 94; Broz and Bosanac Citation1896, song 65; Jurić Citation2019, 81–82, 84; cf. Blum and Blum Citation1970, 113–18). One account from Croatia takes its influence from the Ottoman millet system with vile coming in four colours reflecting their blood/race/religion: white = Catholic, blue = Orthodox, yellow = Jewish, black = Roma (Ivanišević Citation1905, 254; cf. Lebling Citation2010, 144).10 A. Petrović (Citation1938) gives P. spinosa (sloe, blackthorn, generally trnina, trnula, or crni trn in BCMS) for Crni Glog (black hawthorn), rather than the common Crataegus douglasii. Hawthorn is more commonly magically protective.11 T. R. Đorđević (Citation1901) outlines rituals where drinking and washing in healing springs conclude with monetary oblation to the water and then clothing affixed to a nearby tree. How many spirits are involved here and which is the true site of worship are open to interpretation. Notably, the most common maladies healed were ocular, a significant connection to vila lore (Jurić Citation2019, 80, 83, 103, 128–30, 168, 283, and 334; Kemp Citation1935, 51). Đorđević also notes tree offerings as a diminishing practice (T. R. Đorđević Citation1901, 146). See also the initiation rites for vilenice (female folk healers) where vile descend to the branches of trees to instruct their human initiates (Kukuljević Sakcinski Citation1851, 89–90).12 Tradition-bearers did not generally apply vila traits to humans (a notable exception is Karadžić Citation1841, song 234). The only figure with whom bleed-over occurs is the witch (Čiča Citation2002; Pócs Citation1989).13 Attestation of the vila’s name in the Balkans dates back only to the thirteenth century in an Old Bulgarian manuscript associated with Emperor Konstantin Asen (Niederle Citation1916, 59; Máchal Citation1891, 108) and an oft-copied Glagolitic church reader from Dalmatia (Strohal Citation1916, 6 and 29). The name appears in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Russia in many confessional books (Niederle Citation1916, 61). The compound titles samovila and samodiva are attested from the sixteenth century in Serbian codices (Máchal Citation1891, 108; Strausz Citation1897, 105), while rusalka—attested from the eleventh century in Russia (Niederle Citation1926, 132)—replaced ‘vila’ in the east in the sixteenth century (Niederle Citation1916, 58).14 Lawson notes classificatory ambiguity or breakdown present in Greek nymph lore at the turn of the twentieth century (Lawson Citation1910, 153–55, 160, and 162), but relates that dryads still remained in their trees (Lawson Citation1910, 155–56)—particularly fruit trees (Lawson Citation1910, 155) which rarely figure in vila lore—and with their life still connected to the plant (Lawson Citation1910, 156). The Classical and modern trope of bellicose dryads leaping out of their felled trees (Lawson Citation1910, 158–59) has no parallel with the vila but perhaps hints at the unique vila cognate, the andre, in Gornji Pčinji, Serbia (Filipović and Tomić Citation1955, 105).15 This convergence remains under-explored. Did Classical Greek nymphs influence their northern peers or is the direction of influence the opposite? The names samovila and samodiva were notably adopted into modern Greek, suggesting some form of early contact (Kulišić Citation1979, 146; Stewart Citation1985, 238). Perhaps this shared lore was with the nymph from antiquity, only in ‘lower lore’ which was not preserved in literature (cf. Blum and Blum 1970, 328–29). The traditional explanations of the vila’s hooves as Christian demonization or blending with satyr depictions deserve particular attention given that this trait occurs in other Mediterranean cognates in Sicily, Arabia, and the Maghreb (Henningsen Citation1990, 196 and 211).16 Geographic epithets reflect common understanding as designating habitat. As mentioned, it is possible that they are (sometimes) assigned based on encounter locations and would better serve in Table 2. See full charts with further clarification in Jurić (Citation2019, 71, 92, 199, and 257).17 A conception of sea-vile in the shape of mermaids (fish from waist down) is included in the oldest Western Balkan attestation (Strohal Citation1916, 29). Whether this idea migrated with the Slavs (Barber Citation2013, 19–20) or was adopted in the Balkans is unclear, as well as whether her conception was mixed like that of the rusalki and nereids, or always in mermaid form.18 Note though that T. D. Đorđević marks crossroads as the critical site of vila encounter, with the trees nearly incidental. Even the Aromanianized Roma whom Tomić interviewed felt vile could inhabit trees but did not live there (Tomić Citation1950, 241).Additional informationNotes on contributorsDorian JurićDorian Jurić is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the School of Anthropological and Sociological Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada, as well as a Harry Frank Guggenheim Distinguished Scholar. He has published a number of articles on supernatural beings, oral traditions, foodways, and the politics of folklore in the Western Balkans from the nineteenth century to the present.