Reading the book “Morphology of the fairy tale” (Vladimir Propp, 1929), my attention was prompted by some passages of 20th century European popular literature, in which we can find the same conception of the tripartite universe (or quadripartite) that according to the scholar Dumezil constitutes the cosmological and social foundation of European civilizations at least since the fifth millennium BC.
In the fairy tale of Brunella, for example, the breaking of the cosmic levels puts the community of the living in direct communication with the world of the dead, to whom the function of “helpers from the other world” is recognized. The hand of the deceased mother who stretches out of the grave, the tree planted on the grave, the bird perched on the tree, a well known symbol of the soul of the deceased, express the belief, still alive in the popular tradition, that the deceased could cross the threshold that separates them from the world of the living and enter into communication with their descendants. In Finland, on the day of the dead, each family deposited luminous candles and offers of food on the surface of the rocks, some of which were covered by rock carvings, in the belief that the dead came from the afterlife to meet their relatives. (J. Hautala, Survivals of the Cult of Sacrifice Stones in Finland, Temenos, 1965).
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Naquane, Capodiponte, Rock 35. The image portrays the bust, arms, and head of an anthropomorph in the pose of the Chthonian Man. It would be wrong to think that the representation of this body, which lacks the lower part, is incomplete. In fact, as Claude Berard highlighted when speaking of this type of representation in the Greek repertoire, the image captures the precise moment when the entity exceeds, but only with the upper part of the body, the thin veil that separates the earthly dimension from the one below. Only the upper part of the anthropomorph is thus visible because the body has not yet completely emerged from the earth.
Using an “Archeology of knowing” procedure (see post 6), the data provided by stories and popular traditions are an interesting contribution to the understanding of some prehistoric images. I refer above all to the anthropomorphic figures who, assuming particular postures, take on the role of mediators between man and the regions of the Cosmos.
Attic vase (Valle Trebbia, VI century BC) Some silen (spirit of the woods and wild nature) beat the earth with heavy bats recalling to the surface Persephone, the queen of the underworld and goddess of fertility who, after spending the autumn and winter in the underworld, reappears in spring to restore life to the world.
In the Western tradition are told many stories that speak about sacred spaces, such as the surface of some rocks or a rift in the ground, which Claude Berard calls “chthonian passages”, where there is a link between the world of the living and the world of the dead. In the figurative imaginary the work of mediation between man and the underground world, place of the seeds and the dead, is conducted by the Chthonian Man with his arms pointing downwards.