Мотив превращения в калмыцких сказках на сюжетный тип АТ 400 «Муж (жена) ищет исчезнувшую жену (мужа)»

Introduction. In the foundation of Kalmyk folktales, there are several options of the plot type ATU 400 «The Man on a Quest for His Lost Wife». In these fairy tales the motif of the hero’s transformation is a plot-forming one. Goals. In this article, for the first time in Kalmyk folklore studies, the motif of transformation is considered in Kalmyk Folktales of the Plot Type ATU 400. Results. In terms of gender, in fairy tales based on the plot of AT 400, the snake is represented in a male hypostasis. This character is localized on earth in the middle world of people (thickets of weeds, steppe). The image of a wonderful spouse in the form of a frog gives its localization in the water element (sea, river). When burning the skin of a snake / frog, the spouse, a representative of the upper world, ascends to heaven in the guise of a yellow–headed swan. The motif of the transformation of a wonderful spouse shows the «ease» of the transformation of a snake into a bird, in the considered texts — a swan. The attribute of a snake /frog is «golden», represented in various forms, starting from a golden belly and ending with a golden ring, an intermediate link can be called a golden trail left by a snake. This feature indicates belonging to another world and reflects the connection of the components of the semantic series «golden — sunny». In the image of the yellow-headed swan, in addition to the white color, which correlates with solar semantics, yellow is also noted, reinforcing this connection

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Art history · Coffin · Folklore · Genealogy · Heaven · HERO · Legend · Literature · Theology · Wife · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Mathematics · Philosophy