Les Rondalles sobre els mesos de gener, febrer, març i abril a la tradició catalana

Abstract

The stories about the months of January, February, March and April within the Catalan tradition This article is a review and analysis of seven tales listed under type ATU 294 in the Índex tipològic de la rondalla catalana (Oriol / Pujol, 2003: 70). Type 294 in the international ATU index is included in the section that deals with stories in which animals, the forces of Nature, cultural concepts (the months of the year) or inanimate things play a prominent part. These stories are often of an aetiological kind. Like other Mediterranean traditions, Catalan narrative also reveals a duality in the relation of events, so some stories try to account for the fact that February has only 28 days, while others (the majority, in fact) attempt to offer an explanation of why there is often bad weather in late March or early April. Sometimes, both phenomena are explained in a single story, and some tales advance an aetiological reason for the presence of unusual geological formations in a particular place, which are accounted for as places where the aged protagonist sheltered from the bad March weather. It is not only the background that is interesting in these stories but also the figures of speech that are used, with formulae in verse that, together with the accounts of the details of the climate and calendar, constitute the factors that make the stories about these so called days of the old woman so popular and attractive.