Grip

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

A grab is an iron tool, with the help of which heavy cast irons and pots are put into the furnace and taken out. It is a curved iron plate, which is attached to a long wooden stick, so that the hostess can put in the fire and take out cast iron with cabbage soup, porridge, and water from the depths of the stove. Usually there were several grips in the house, they were of different sizes, for large and small pots, and with handles of different lengths. As a rule, only women dealt with the grip, since cooking, and indeed everything connected with the stove, was a woman's concern. It happened that they used it as a weapon of attack and defense. A woman armed with a grip is an almost classic image in a village. No wonder there is such a proverb: With a grip a woman - even for a bear! We find confirmation of this in living dialectal speech: Do not come to me, scoundrel, I will give you a wilmy and a stag! However, other names for grip are also known to Russian dialects. One of them - stag - has already been met in the previous example. It is used in most of the southern Russian regions. The word forks-pitchforks; in the southwest, these are tanks. distributed in the west of our territory, on the border with Belarus; a little eastern catch is called.

The very name ukhvat is not only widespread over the vast territory of Russian dialects, but also belongs to the literary language. Often it can be found in fiction when describing a peasant life:

"… Benches, a table, a washstand on a string, a towel on a nail, we have it in the corner and a wide pole lined with pots - everything was like in an ordinary hut." (A. Pushkin. Captain's daughter.

Now, think about the listed names of the grip: how transparent is their origin, how it is clear why this object is named that way. In one case, it is obvious that the object is so named for its shape: the stag resembles horns. In another case, a connection with the verb is noticeable: a grasp is what one grabs, grabs the pots with; Capacities are what they are taken out with, they are lifted (-nim- and -em- are variants of the same root, cf. I accept - reception; with the same root there are two more words denoting grasp: weaning and lifting).

Less often in Russian dialects, the following names for the grip are found: grasp, grasp, grab, snatch, grip, girth; towel (handbrake).

The words stag and forks (fork) are widespread in Ukrainian dialects; the literary name in the Ukrainian language is stag.

When a woman in labor needed to be protected from evil spirits, they put a grip with horns to the stove and, leaving the hut, she took this grip with her as a staff. The use of a grip in wedding rituals emphasizes the role of the hearth in the rite, which exhibits protective properties. In the Belgorod district Kursk lips. During matchmaking, the matchmaker, before asking about the bride - the "corrupt heifer", tied the grips together and touched the stove. When removing the veil or opening the bride, along with other objects: a friend's whip, a frying pan, a stick, pies, a grip was also used.

On the first day after the wedding night, when the young people washed in the bath, the guests had to, smeared with soot, put on "comical costumes", taking with them grabs, pomegranates, pokers, shovels, ride around the village, making as much noise as possible. After the young people returned, the guests gathered again in the hut, where they were treated to wine and pancakes. In the funeral and memorial ritual, after the deceased was taken out, a grasp was placed in the place where he was lying to protect the house from death. In calendar rituals, the role of the grip when dressing at Christmas time is especially noteworthy. From a grip and a pot or jug put on its horns, the head of a bull or horse was made, the body of which was represented by a man covered with a canopy. When they came to the Christmas festivities, the bull was “sold”, that is, they hit the “bull's head” with an ax to break the pot. At the same time they said: "The bull will be yours, and I will beat him." When playing blind man's buff at Christmas gatherings, intercepting on the grip, they identified the driver, who was blindfolded, taken to the door, ran up to him, hitting him with a towel, sash, mitten, palm until he caught a replacement.

The grip was also used in the plowing ceremony.

There was a sign: so that the brownie did not leave the house when the owner left the house, it was necessary to block the stove with a grab or close the stove damper. They said about the grip: “Grab the grip, but run to people!”; "With a grip a woman - even for a bear!"; they made riddles: “The horn is not a bull, it’s enough and not full, it gives people, and goes to rest”; "Crooked belmes climbed under the pot."