UNKNOWN CRAYNIAN DEVILS: KOSHEL (YANCIP), TOKIEL AND CYPRIL. AN ETYMOLOGICAL AND COSMOGONICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF A FOLK TALE FROM CRAYNA’S BORDERLANDS

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the etymology and cosmogony of a folk tale describing three devils, the names of which have so far remained unknown to Polish ethnography. The tale was discovered in Orzełek, a village in North-East Krayna in Polish Pomerania. The story was first written down as a homework by a 10-year old girl Zuzanna Myszkowska, with the tale being passed to her by her grandfather Antoni Myszkowski. This description is treated here as a valid empirical ethnographic document since the author follows Dorota Simonides’s suggestion that children’s folklore constitutes an important ethnographic source of cultural knowledge. Accepting that the term devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, the author follows Eugeniusz Frankowski’s distinction between two types of devils: the biblical Satan on the one hand and folk devils (tempters) on the other. In the tale, as told by Zuzanna, the devils combine the features of both types. In Crayna, the devil that has the features of the biblical Satan as well as those of folk tempters is commonly referred to as a kaduk. The tale begins as follows: in a water-mill in Obkas next to Orzełek, there lived there devils Koshel (Yancyp), Tokiel and Cypril, who become active during night helping in the production of dry goods, as a result making the miller richer. Tackling the problem of the origins of the names of the devils, the author puts forward a hypothesis that these derive from activities and objects related to the work in the water-mill. The name Koshel derives from the name of a basket used to store flour and other grain products (kosz in Polish, transliterated as kosh). The origins of Tokiel can be found in the name of a kind of a strainer (toka in Polish) used for sifting flour. The name Cypril derives from a colloquial name of the Craynian people, namely cyp, which can also denote a small triangular tip, or cusp, of any object. Therefore, the name Cypril can refer either to the amber pieces that this kaduk carried to the lake or to the tip of his hood (less likely). Explaining the origin of the name Yancyp is a bit more involved. Its prefix yan either comes from the Polish name for amber – jantar (transliterated as yantar) or is related to the colloquial name for the Antichrist: Yancychrist, whereas the origin of its suffix, cyp, has been described above. The endings -el -il indicate verbal derivatives related to the objects used in mill work: a basket, a strainer, the amber pieces. Cypril on his cart carried pieces of amber to the lake (alternatively as mentioned, the name refers to the tip of his hood). Koshel got villagers drunk on vodka made from flour, which he stored in the mentioned baskets. Tokiel scattered the flour around using the strainer, thus depleting the resources and adding to the workload of the villagers. The final part of the article describes a cosmogonical role played by the kaduks in creating the world (especially in creating the lakes and boulders in Crayna) and explains why the villagers considered their misfortunes to have extra-moral sources, making the kaduks responsible for them. In this approach, the ontological, moral and social aspects of life are not distinguished. Instead, these are combined into syncretic associations, which is characteristic of monistic (magical) way of thinking. As a result of not distinguishing moral, ontological and social planes, the villagers do not search for the moral sources of their misfortunes in themselves. Instead they blame the kaduks for their own vices: drunkenness, bickering, negligence, mischievousness. The villagers also blame the miller, who after all collaborates with the devils, for the misfortunes that come their way