Polish folk tales about the origin of plants: lexicographic, ethnographic and folkloristic material

Research data related to the implementation of the National Science Centre grant entitled "The relationships between man and plant in Polish folklore (on the example of shrubs). Studies on the border between ethnolinguistics and ethnobotany" (project number: 2021/43/D/HS2/01019; project manager: Dr. Olga Kielak).

The document contains research data used in the analysis of issues related to the divine and diabolical origin of selected plants. I discussed these issues in my article entitled: Divine thus good, devilish thus bad? Folk linguistic perceptions about plants and their characteristics in Polish folklore („Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine” 2025, nr 21, 53).

It presents three types of data:

a) lexicographic data – folk names of plants that may echo formerly existing belief-based narratives in Polish culture concerning the divine or diabolical origin of a plant;

b) ethnographic data – ethnographic records that discuss the origin of selected plants, along with contexts that allow for the reconstruction of traditional perceptions of these plants;

c) folkloric data – folk aetiological legends that tell of the origin of selected plants.

The folklore texts and ethnographic contexts that form the source material for the document come from ethnographic sources published at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (monographs and articles printed in ethnographic journals such as Zbiór Wiadomości do Antropologii Krajowej, Materiały Antropologiczno-Archeologiczne i Etnograficzne, Wisła, and Lud). The contexts were excerpted based on a source list adopted by the ethnolinguistic team in Lublin working on the Dictionary of Folk Stereotypes and Symbols. The cited folk plant names that include diabolical components or sacronyms were obtained from dialect dictionaries of the Polish language.

The geographical range of the source materials I have gathered covers the entire ethnically Polish territory. In some cases, I also include materials from Poles living in the Polish-Belarusian, Polish-Ukrainian borderlands, as well as the Vilnius region. The document includes metrics (abbreviations), the resolution of which is provided in the bibliography.

All analyses conducted based on the collected source data were carried out using a linguistic methodology (cognitive definition).