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Flowers
and vegetation motifs:
Bluebell: fragile beauty, gentleness
Carnation: mature beauty, often
used on funeral towels
Cornflower: fertility, fragile
beauty
Elderberry blossom: fertility,
intoxication, pleasure
Pansy: happiness, often used
to represent children
Periwinkle: permanence, eternity,
longevity (periwinkle is an evergreen)
Poppy: beauty, love, the intoxication
of love
Pumpkin flower: fertility, fecundity,
wealth, prosperity
Rose: robust beauty, vigor
Sunflower: fertility, prosperity,
abundance
Kalyna: (the rowan tree): longing,
healing, often used on towels for soldiers killed in battle
and other unquiet dead
Oak: strength, vigor, permanence
(the oak is often struck by lightening and is thus associated
with the world tree, the tree that connects the underworld,
this world, and heaven)
Tree of life: continuity, eternity
Wheat: prosperity, fertility,
the strength of the soil
Cherries: fertility, fecundity
(cherries are a motif characteristic of the Cherkasy region)
Grapes: fertility, good harvest,
growth
Strawberry: fertility, good harvest,
growth
Birds,
animals, insects:
Cuckoo: sorrow, especially a
woman lamenting the death of a family member
Eagle: masculine strength and
vigor
Lark: youth, joy, vigor; often
used in pairs to represent the young couple
Nightingale: beauty, longing
Peacock: beauty, prosperity
Rooster: vigor, fertility
Swan: beauty, grace, strength
Butterfly: the departure of the
soul
Deer: wealth, feminine protection
Abstract
motifs:
Band: continuity, eternity
Dispel: this is the term we
are using from the many motifs that are at the bottom edges
of towels. They are supposed to point down to the ground
and take all of the evil out of the household and transfer
it into the soil. The earth, it is believed, has the power
to absorb evil and disperse it.
Meander: continuity; also associated
with water and thus representative of fertility
Rhombus: feminine strength
and vigor; birth
Three: totality, unity. The
number three is associated with the Christian Trinity and
with pre-Christian ideas. Almost any motif can appear in
groups of three: flowers, especially roses, bands, trees
of life, birds, and so forth.
Wreath-open: wedding; the future
of the couple is open and their life is ahead of them
Wreath-closed: funeral; the
life of the person is complete and has come full circle
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