Narrative Motifs of the Legends of the Island of Sicily

The purpose of this article is to identify stable plot motifs in Sicilian legends. The material of the study is the legends of the island of Sicily, the specificity of which consists in cultural, historical and linguistic diversity. The following methods were used in the study: descriptive-analytical, structural-semantic, functional-semantic, historical-typological, and the method of translation of sources. The main plot-forming motifs of the legends of the island of Sicily and their most stable combinations are identified. The most frequent motif is the motif of love, combined with the motif of transformation, realized in the narrative as the transformation of a person into an object of nature or as endowment of an inanimate object with life, or with the motif of revenge, which is especially characteristic of ancient legends. The motif of the victory of good over evil, expressed in the oppositions Christianity-paganism or Christianity-witchcraft; the motif of a man's conspiracy with the devil; the motif of cunning; the motif of justice and the motif of treasure hunting. The specificity of combinations of the mentioned motives and the peculiarities of their realisation in the narrative depending on the type of the legend and the period of its appearance is revealed.