Original scientific paper The bee, the witch, and the altar – on an exemplum from the „Petris Miscellany“ (1468) (Croatian: Pčela, vještica i ormar – o jednome egzemplu iz “Petrisova zbornika” (1468.)) is written by Igor MEDIĆ, PhD (Old Church Slavonic Institute), collaborator on the FEMIGLA project.
The paper is published in Croatica et Slavica Iadertina 21/2 (2025), pp. 13–35.
It is avilable at: https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/494317.
Summary
The article interprets the hitherto unexplored exemplum K(a)p(i)t(ul) ot bahoricʼ nečisʼ (The Story about a Wicked Witch) from the Croatian Glagolitic non-liturgical Petris Miscellany (1468).
The introductory section gives a brief overview of the genre-related problems that have arisen from earlier attempts to define the exemplum as a literary genre. It also briefly discusses Eduard Hercigonjaʼs research on the Petris Miscellany as a whole and more recent analyses of individual exempla from the corpus of Croatian Glagolitic literature.
The content and structure of the story about a witch who is persuaded by the devil to use a consecrated host for magic is analysed. The story is related to a group of exempla that were very popular in the late Middle Ages and early modern period and deal with the Eucharist and the doctrine of transubstantiation. Drawing on the research of the Austrian ethnologist Leopold Kretzenbacher, the text is compared with a number of similar exempla about the host in a beehive in order to identify variations in the basic plot and the variety of roles played by central motifs from the 12th to the 19th century.
Drawing on the findings of Michael Ostlingʼs study of witch trials in early modern Poland, an attempt is made to illuminate various cultural meanings that such texts may have had in the past and their complex influence on popular piety. Based on the insights gained, a parallel text from the Fatević Miscellany (1617) is also discussed in the concluding part of the article.
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