LOREDANA-MARIA ILIN-GROZOIU, Caracteristici simbolice ale focurilor rituale în cultura populară şi religioasă din Oltenia (Symbolic characteristics of the ritual fires in the folk and religious culture from Oltenia)

LOREDANA-MARIA ILIN-GROZOIU
Cercetător ştiinţific III, dr., Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor” al Academiei Române, din Craiova;
E-mail: lorelayy2007@yahoo.com

Abstract
Founded on direct field researches, our study intends to depict the ethnological valences of the fire, within the different sequences of the customs that take place along the year, in Oltenia. The fire, a ritual element characterised through an exceptional cultural presence, is made of a set of symbols and values, meant to bring harmony on all the existential levels, in this way preparing the good omens for the entering into a new world. It is attributed with sacred, purifying, funerary, fertilising, regenerating forces, and, not last, divinatory ones.

Keywords
fire, ritual element, Oltenia, calendar customs, magical-ritual virtue