The three Ursitoare, in Romanian mythology, are supposed to appear three nights after a child's birth to determine the course of its life. They are most similar to the Roman Parcae, the Latin equivalent of the Greek Fates or Moirai. [1] [2]
The Fates appearing to baptize children has been part of Romanian tradition for hundreds of years. In recent years there has been a "physical materialization" too of this tradition through the show presented during the name party.
Their most common names are ursitori and ursitoare, [3] but variations appear locally, like ursători, ursoaie, ursońi, urzoaie, [4] ursite. [5] Similarly, in the Oltenia region, they are dialectally known as ursătóri(le), ursitóri(le), ursătoáre(le). [6] They are also euphemisticaly called albe, fecioare, babe, [7] Albe Caşmete, and Hărăzite. [8]
The great variety in their names, according to Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, attests the "ancient popularity" of the belief. [9]
According to Romulus Vulcănescu , the term originates from the expression a ursi, from Latin ordior 'predeterminate, weave', also found in Modern Greek orizo and Bulgarian urisram. [10]
The Ursitoari equal three beings, but are variably described as three girls, three virgins, three sisters, three women, or three apparitions. [11] [12] [13] [14]
They come at night to the newborn's cradle, three nights after their birth, and weave their fate. [15] [16] [17] [18] During the same period, thw child's mother and the midwife work to propitiate the Ursiotare in order to earn their goodwill. [19] [20] These beings also assign a fated partner to a person. [21] [22]
In Moldova, the ursitoare are good fairies clad in white and equal three: the ursitoarea, who holds a spindle and a loom; the soarta, who weaves the thread, and the moartea, who cuts the thread. [23] Likewise, in Romanian popular belief, the Ursitoare are three beings that come to weave the child's fate, each of them having separate functions: Torcătoarea, who furnishes the life thread; Depănătoarea, who spins it into the spindle, and Curmătoarea, who cuts it with scissors, representing the allotted time for the person. [24] [25]
Scholarship indicates that similar beings (a trio of women that allot men's fates) also exist in South Slavic folklore, among the Serbians, Macedonians, [26] Slovenes, [27] Croatians, Bulgarians and Montenegrinians. [28] [29]
In Bulgaria (also among Bulgarians in Moldova), there is the belief in орисници ("orisnitsi"), three women that come at night to bless the newborn child and decree their fate. They are sometimes described as elderly women wearing black, or three women of differing ages. [30]
Zburător or sburător is a supernatural being in Romanian folklore, described as a "roving spirit who makes love to maidens by night".
Iuga of Moldavia was Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia from November 1399 to June 1400. According to one hypothesis, he may have been the Lithuanian prince George Koriatovich. Other hypotheses posit him as the son of Roman I of Moldavia (1391–1394) and an unknown wife, possibly of Lithuanian extraction from descendants of Karijotas, confused with the Lithuanian prince because of the similar name and background. The nickname "the Crippled" can be found only in the chronicle of Putna Monastery, drafted in the first years of the 16th century, but its origins are unknown. The reasons why he has remained in history with this nickname are not known precisely.
George Bariț, was an ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian historian, philologist, playwright, politician, businessman and journalist, the founder of the Romanian language press in Transylvania.
Io is the contraction of a title used mainly by the royalty in Moldavia and Wallachia, preceding their names and the complete list of titles. First used by the Asenid rulers of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the particle is the abbreviation of theophoric name Ioan (John), which comes from the original Hebrew Yohanan, meaning "God has favored". Io appeared in most documents, as issued by their respective chancelleries, since the countries' early history, but its frequency and relative importance among the princely attributes varied over time. Its usage probably dates back to the foundation of Wallachia, though it spread to Moldavia only in the 15th century. In more informal contexts, Romanians occasionally applied the title to benefactors or lieges from outiside the two countries, including John Hunyadi and George II Rákóczi.
Ștefan Dimitrescu was a Romanian Post-impressionist painter and draftsman.
Mircea Aurel Vulcănescu was a Romanian philosopher, economist, ethics teacher, sociologist, and politician. Undersecretary at the Ministry of Finance from 1941 to 1944 in the Nazi-aligned government of Ion Antonescu, he was arrested in 1946 and convicted as a war criminal.
Iorgu Iordan was a Romanian linguist, philologist, diplomat, journalist, and left-wing agrarian, later communist, politician. The author of works on a large variety of topics, most of them dealing with issues of the Romanian language and Romance languages in general, he was elected a full member of the Romanian Academy in 1945. He was head of its Institute of Linguistics between 1949 and his retirement in 1962.
The folklore of Romania is the collection of traditions of the Romanians. A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre until the 18th century. They were both a source of inspiration for cultivated creators and a structural model. Second, for a long time learned culture was governed by official and social commands and developed around courts of princes and boyars, as well as in monasteries.
Andrei Oișteanu is a Romanian historian of religions and mentalities, ethnologist, cultural anthropologist, literary critic and novelist. Specialized in the history of religions and mentalities, he is also noted for his investigation of rituals and magic and his work in Jewish studies and the history of antisemitism. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he also became noted for his articles and essays on the Holocaust in Romania.
Henri Joseph Stahl was a Romanian stenographer, graphologist, historian and fiction writer. Born to educated immigrant parents, he was a friend and disciple of Nicolae Iorga, doyen of modern Romanian historiography. Much of his work in the field resulted in a monographic and conservationist study of his native Bucharest, which was published by Iorga in 1910.
Camil Bujor Mureșanu was a Romanian historian, professor and author.
Tudor Pamfile was a Romanian writer.
Ștefan Ciobanu was a Moldovan historian and academician, author of some important works about ancient Romanian literature, Romanian culture in Basarabia under Russian occupation, Bessarabian demography, fervent advocate of the introduction of the Romanian language in the schools of Bessarabia, vice-president of the Romanian Academy between 1944 and 1948. He served as Minister of Education (1917–1918) of the short-lived Moldavian Democratic Republic.
Traian Herseni was a Romanian social scientist, journalist, and political figure. First noted as a favorite disciple of Dimitrie Gusti, he helped establish the Romanian school of rural sociology in the 1920s and early 1930s, and took part in interdisciplinary study groups and field trips. A prolific essayist and researcher, he studied isolated human groups across the country, trying to define relations between sociology, ethnography, and cultural anthropology, with an underlying interest in sociological epistemology. He was particularly interested in the peasant cultures and pastoral society of the Făgăraș Mountains. Competing with Anton Golopenția for the role of Gusti's leading disciple, Herseni emerged as the winner in 1937; from 1932, he also held a teaching position at the University of Bucharest.
Virgil Iuliu Bărbat was a Romanian sociologist.
Arboroasa was a society (Studentenverbindung) for Romanian students in the Austro-Hungarian city of Czernowitz, located in the Bukovina region of Cisleithania. Operating between 1875 and 1877 and attracting several dozen participants, its activities were both cultural and patriotic in nature; a central figure within the group was composer Ciprian Porumbescu. Arboroasa was shut down by the authorities and the leadership arrested after members sent two politically sensitive telegrams to the Romanian Old Kingdom. However, a year later, the organization was largely reconstituted as Societatea Academică Junimea.
Emanoil Bucuța was a Romanian prose writer, poet, cultural official, and Corresponding Member of the Romanian Academy.
The Ursitory are a group of three fairies or female spirits of fate in the Balkanic and Romani folklore. Two of them are good spirits, while one tries to harm people. In Romani folklore, their queen is Matuya, who makes use of gigantic birds called the Charana.
Victor Spinei is Emeritus Professor of history and archaeology at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, member and vice president of the Romanian Academy. He is a specialist on the history of Romania and the Romanian people in the Early and High Middle Ages, the history of migratory peoples in Eastern and Southeastern Europe during this period, and the production and circulation of cult objects in Eastern and Southeastern Europe during the Middle Ages.
The Paharnic was a historical Romanian rank, one of the non-hereditary positions ascribed to the boyar aristocracy in Moldavia and Wallachia. It was the local equivalent of a cup-bearer or cześnik, originally centered on pouring and obtaining wine for the court of Moldavian and Wallachian Princes. With time, it became a major administrative office and, in Wallachia, also had a lesser military function. The retinue of such boyars, usually called Păhărnicei, was in both countries also a private army.
... cele trei Ursitoare din mitofolclorul românesc, echivalentul autohton al Moirelor grecesti sau al Parcelor romane.[... the three Ursitoare of Romanian folklore, autochthonous equivalent to the Greek Moirai and Roman Parcae.]
... the goddesses of fate (Ursitoare) who preside over the birth of each child and assign its destiny ...
The demonic beings that designate the destiny at the birth of a child are known in Macedonia as narechnitsi, sudienitsi, urechnici or rechenitsi. A characteristic feature of the narechnitsi is their anthropomorphized appearance. They are females — three women, maidens or sisters ...
... the goddesses of fate (Ursitoare) who preside over the birth of each child and assign its destiny [are] present among the Slovenes of northern Yugoslavia. There, the Sojenice or Rojenice decide a child's fate and the time and manner of its death.
71. Greek moira, Serbian, Croatian, and Bulgarian urisnici, nerusnici, and sudnice or sudjenice, Slovenian rojenice, Romanian ursitoare, ursaie, Albanian fatite, or fatije, and others.