Tag Archives: Romanian

Splitting the Pole

Text: The excerpt below is a folk performance describing superstitions over splitting the pole.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: Ok, yes. So one of them is, if you split the pole, so if you’re walking with someone, but you split a pole, or like, as long as it’s above your waist, it counts for me. That means that you, in the future, will split apart of that person and never see them again, so like, for me, like, I feel like it brings bad luck to relationships. So either I’ll walk along the other side of the pole, or if you split it, you go back and hit it, it’s fine. So that brings bad luck, but there is like a way to undo it, I guess, as well.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation with a fellow Forms of Folklore student. The conversation started by specifically talking about their Romanian heritage, and the folklore that came with that identity. After talking for a while about that topic, the conversation shifted to general superstitious beliefs, as recorded above. The interviewee engages with this folk belief whenever they are walking with someone, and separated by a pole.

Analysis:

This belief is an example of sympathetic magic, as the physical separation by the pole reflects the separation of a relationship. This belief likely exists because when walking and splitting from someone for a short time, that feeling of separation is felt by a person, and that feeling, through this folk belief, is enlarged to the feeling of separating from a whole relationship. There is a way to remove the bad luck through conversion magic, by hitting the pole, allowing people to feel at ease, even after committing this offense.

Even VS Odd Flowers

Text: The excerpt below is a performance describing the even vs odd flowers Romanian superstition.

Interviewer: Do you have any folk beliefs of what brings good or bad luck?

Interviewee: And, so like, I brought this up in class on Tuesday, but it’s the, uh, when you bring someone flowers, if it’s an even number, that’s bad luck, because you only bring even numbers to funerals, when you are mourning someone, in Romanian culture, so you’ll always bring odd flowers [when going to an event that is happy].

Interviewer: Do you know where you heard of these beliefs?

Interviewee: Yeah, they’re from my parents, it’s part of the culture, it’s like a very superstitious culture.

Context:

This excerpt is from a conversation during a discussion class of Forms of Folklore. The person interviewed is of Romanian heritage, and grew up in America. They always bring an even number of flowers to funerals, and an odd number to joyous events.

Analysis:

This belief likely is held because the believer likes to feel greater influence over events that they do not affect. The superstition also points to the multiple, competing symbolic meanings of flowers, how flowers are given joyfully to someone you love, but also, they are used to mourn for those who die. These competing use cases resulted in this belief forming, where which circumstance of flowers had to be made clear. It is also interesting how odd is considered lucky, while even is considered unlucky. This folkloric belief, in its focus on odd and even, is extremely similar to and possibly connected to the pulling petals folk activity, where depending on if the number of petals pulled is odd or even, someone does or does not love the ritual performer. Also, the fact that odd in particular is joyful, while even is somber, could have arose from the fact that giving one flower is common, and it would be strange from that to be classified as unlucky, so from there, all odds were made happy, and evens were made unlucky.

Romanian Joke

Age: 51

Context:

The informant is a Romanian immigrant now living in the United States. She recounts the jokes from back home when she was a young in the 90s.

Text:

“We have very weird jokes they’re either offensive, or matter a fact and stupid. For example, like okay, a professor says “Bula tell us five animals from African continent,” and Bula says “1 lion and 4 monkeys.”

Bula is the name of the kid. But it’s so stupid, I find it funny. There were always people that would be saying let me tell u this joke let me tell you that.

Analysis:

This is an example of a larger cycle of Bula jokes, a well-known genre in Romanian humor built around this fool “Bula.” This example shows how folklore is not just text but performance tied to social roles. This joke works depending on who tells it and in what context.

The humor operates through anti-humor because the listener expects a thoughtful response to the professors question but instead receives something very simple. The dryness of the joke and the delivery, which is a core aspect to Romanian humor, enhances the effect in the school setting. The joke is funny because it’s matter of fact, the answer isn’t wrong exactly but it’s so literal and stupid that it’s funny. It reflects how humor can be culturally specific, and it would be a joke within a specific folk group because of it.

Additionally the repetition of Bula in other jokes and by the class clown of the class demonstrates multiplicity and variation as many jokes reuse the same character in different scenarios. This is similar to “let me tell you a joke” or “knock knock” is acts as a signal and a performance marker, listeners then know something funny is going to begin and it frames their way of looking at it.

Finally, these jokes function as a form of social bonding within a peer group, especially in school setting where humor can challenge an authority figure like professors. In strict Romanian schooling a student presenting a joke about a student who gives an absurd answer to a professor is a subtle play at power dynamics within the class. This provides a space for students to laugh at institutional authority and is probably why my informant remembers it so clearly when prompted about jokes.

Black Cat Bad Luck

Age: 51

Text:

Informant: “If a black cat crosses your path, that means like bad luck.”

Interviewer: Okay. Is there anything you can do to, like, undo it?

Informant: No. That’s bad luck. So I gotta, yeah, I don’t know. I gotta watch out for things. Yeah. Gotta be more careful. Maybe not. I don’t know. bungee jumping.

Interviewer: So there’s not like, something to like make the luck like fine.

Informant: No, we don’t, we don’t really have that at all. Like that you could do something about it.

Analysis:

This example of superstition, a belief-based form of folklore. It is widely known that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck, even when people don’t fully commit to believing it. Many superstitions come with a clear way to reverse the bad luck, taking it into your own hands and making it good. However, the informants cultural perspective believes that bad luck is not something than can be reversed or controlled. Instead, it is accepted as something that simple “is,” reflecting a more fatalist approach to superstition.

This belief emphasizes acceptance over intervention, with the informant even mentioning to watch your actions after and be more careful. This response to be more cautious shows how similar superstitions can functions differently across cultures even when the core belief is shared.

This example connects to the broader idea that folklore operates within a shared cultural logic and helps people connect to a folk group and other values. The superstition does not require proof or an explanation. Its truth comes from being widely accepted and in this case, the absence of a “fix” becomes part of the tradition itself. This reinforces a worldview in which certain outcomes are unavoidable.

This example demonstrates how across cultures and spaces stories and beliefs can adapt and change. Folklore is not just about the content but the belief and importantly the response. Different cultures respond to uncertainty and misfortune differently, shaping behavior through shared assumptions about luck and control over the events in life.

Paștile Blajinilor (The Easter of the Gentle People)

This first story is about what we would call here (Romania) Easter of the Gentle People. Gentle as in nice, kind, you know? And one week after Orthodox Easter, uh during the first Sunday, people come out, out of their homes, and they go in the fields and spread uhhhh eggs and they try to make as much noise as possible because apparently they say that there is such a people, the gentle people, that lives in an unseen area. And these people are incapable to harm anyone. So all the, the whole country, this is a umm I don’t know, this is present everywhere in the country, not only in one specific area. So the only problem that they have is that they cannot calculate the date of Easter. So that is why people must make a lot of noise to signify that this is finally Easter day. In Romania it is called Paștile Blajinilor. It means gentle, kind, nice, sweet. 

Background: This informant has lived in Romania their whole life and is very interested in the folk traditions of various countries. They found this piece of folklore from other people in Romania.

Interpretation: This tale shows the blending of religious tradition with folk tradition. The tradition of Easter Sunday is blended with folk belief about fairies in order to create this holiday. The reason that the gentle people in the story cannot calculate the date of Easter could be connected to how in many tales about fairies, time moves differently in the land of the fairies than on earth. This may be the result of christianization of local folk belief in fairies in order to show that even they believe in Easter and affirm Christianity.