Legendy o cudownych wizerunkach Matki Bożej na Polskim Podkarpaciu

Legends About Miraculous Images of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Polish Sub-Carpathian Region

Summary: The legends and stories about Our Lady in the verbal folklore of the Polish Sub-Carpathians, like the ones in the other parts of the country, comprise a distinct but highly differentiated set of materials. The main character in them, the Blessed Virgin, is presented as the person closest to the nature of God and therefore in a way sharing His attributes while remaining very human and ordinary. Perhaps what influenced this presentation of Mary in the folk culture was the tendency which developed over many centuries in Christianity to establish a bridge between the divine and the human, between heaven and earth, between the splendour of the next world and the hardships of mundane existence. Thanks to this intercession many problems may be solved through a powerful force from outside the sphere of human influence, and many truths intimated to Christians in a more familiar and accessible way. Perhaps this is why Marian motifs are so frequent in the verbal folklore: there was both an individual and a collective need for contacts which were so direct, so simple, and free of the bewildering magnificence and awe of being in the presence of the Sacred. It seems that the figure of Our Lady was an excellent embodiment of this role. Her presence in the folk culture, the position She assumed in this culture, and ultimately the causes and consequences of this state of affairs constitute a separate, interesting subject for the researcher into folklore, the ethnographer and the sociologist. This essay is merely an attempt to organise the wealth of material presented by the stories and motifs connected with Our Lady in the verbal folklore of the Polish Sub-Carpathian region. Texts describing miraculous images of the Virgin may be divided into three groups: those which tell the story of how a miraculous image was created; those which tell the story of how a miraculous image arrived in a place where the Virgin is venerated; and those which describe wonderful occurrences brought about by the presence of a miraculous image.

Peregrinus Cracoviensis, 1995, z.2, s. 125-141.

Instytut Geografii i Gospodarki Przestrzennej UJ

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