The Maramureş is so rich in rugged timber churches that on going there you are spoilt for choice. They are all different and everybody has their own favourites. One of mine is the 18th century church in the village of Rogoz, in the Lăpuş Valley.
View from under the roof
overhang at Rogoz’s 18th century church
Wall painting of Cerberus
from The Last Judgment at Rogoz
Apotropeic horse-head
symbols supporting the roof
of Rogoz’s 18th century church
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Its asymmetrical shape and naive paintings are very attractive, but its carvings really caught my eye.
If you look underneath the widely overhanging roof, you’ll see consoles in the shape of stylised horses’ heads. Horses have played a vital role in folk beliefs right across Europe and Central Asia: from the little reading I have done, they are there in the British west country ‘hobby horses’, in the Căluş fertility dance and New Year customs of Romania.
I’ve seen modern horse-head symbols adorning a well head in Oltenia, south-western Romania. And there are famous examples of the same motif at the entrance to a half-sunken house in the Village Museum in Bucharest.
Whether these images came to Europe with the peoples who migrated from Central Asia I don’t know but apart from the horses that were slaughtered and buried in a sitting position to accompany Scythian princes to the afterlife, people in Kyrgyzstan believe that a horse can help women who are having difficulty in childbirth: they bring the animal into the ger so that the pregnant mother can see it, and so they say, it has a reassuring effect and chases evil spirits away.
The horses’ heads at Rogoz are also apotropeic symbols: they are there to discourage bad spirits. This is the origin of another curious custom which many owners of working horses in Romania adopt: they tie long red tassels to the bridles. Whether or not they really believe in their protective properties is another question!
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