Wedding Customs and Symbols of Love in Bulgarian and German Fairy Tales
Abstract
The article presents four types of marriage courtship: a promise of love, a presentation of an engagement gift, a bride kidnapping and a parental matchmaking. The materials are based on twenty selected Bulgarian and German fairy tales. They show how the fairy tales’s heroes express their marriage intentions by means of words, gestures, and acts or with the help of third parties. While German fairy tales possess a tendency toward romance, the Bulgarian ones avoid words and gestures of intimacy. The heroes of the Bulgarian folk tale demonstrate their feelings preferably through the giving of magical items, fruits or food as a gift. The bride’s kidnapping is also a common motif in Bulgarian fairy tales. In contrast to the marriages arranged by the parents, the bride’s kidnapping is to be understood as an expression of free will and a marriage based on love.
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