Images of the Other World in the Narratives on Witches

Abstract

The subject of this paper is the chronotope in the narratives on witches, first and foremost in folk tales, fairy tales, and the select examples of fiction. We start from the borderline nature of the witch, who can reside both in this world and beyond it, which is of utmost importance for the shaping of a chronotope. In line with this, the paper presents all the chronotopes of “transition” characteristic of the narratives on witches. In addition, we point to a two-way impact, since the borderline position of the witch affects the chronotope, but also the features of the chronotope itself shape the world where the existence of the witch is possible.
The methodological approach is determined above all by the need to economize and it has imposed the selectiveness in the choice of details from the vast and diverse corpus of materials, as well as a certain amount of abstraction. This methodological approach requires a somewhat schematic construction of the representations of the witch so that they would be of a universal, and not only local character. Therefore, the paper establishes what are at first glance unusual parallels between the spatially and temporally distant cultures, for this enables the typological and other parallels and similarities in the representations of the witch to be established in a relatively simple manner.