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“The girl of Narenj and toranj” is one of the most famous Persian tales about which there are many different narratives. It has been registered by universal code no. 408. It includes some mythical motifs. The motif of the girl’s death and her revival who lives inside fruits, is reminiscent of Plant God. The role of horse, girl’s long hair and her relationship with water, are some other evidences which prove this association. On the other hand, the prevalence of narratives in which the girl comes out of sour orange, citron and pomegranate shows that these fruits were related to myths and they had a kind of importance or special place for the public in the past. In fact, they were used as symbols in some customs like proposal and marriage ceremonies. Sour orange and citron were the symbols of happiness and fertility. Also, pomegranate was the symbol of fertility and blessing. Moreover, it was associated with love and its myths

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In the early human thought, the objects or person's names were consistent with his essence, because primitive man thought that the relationship between the name and object or person is not conventional, and the forces of evil can harm him through his name. This vision is not spatially bounded, and there is in all societies and to all of them has been imposed special rules as taboo naming. In Iranian folklore and Shahnameh, we can easily see the following statements: Sometimes the name is same person's essence. This kind of taboo is seen when Rostam speaks about Siavash murderers by Human. Another example of taboo is the choice of two names to escape the magic injury. We can see this kind of taboo in the southern coast of Iran and among Turkmens. In Shahnameh we can see this factor in the story of Ghobad and Shide. The third example of taboo naming is to not say the name in the battlefield. This can be seen in the following two ways in the Shahnameh: 1- to repudiate the name explicitly. 2- to avoid saying the name. The latest example of taboo naming is replacing or renaming, that were used for deceiving spirits and escape from their damage.

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The study of popular culture in literary works is one of the approaches that may be useful for interdisciplinary studies such as the social sciences, ethnology, cultural research etc. In addition to represent the ancient culture of a society, these studies reveal the differences and distances between today's society and the past. Reflections on traditions, science and popular belief can also be found in literary texts. Thus, literary texts can potentially transfer these socio-cultural propositions to readers of next generation. The goal of the present study was to determine the frequency and the manner one can apply these beliefs to Rumi’s Ruba’i. The research has been organized in two areas: "Reflection of social customs and habits in Rumi's Rubai “and "Reflection of popular beliefs in Rumi's Ruba’i. The results showed high frequency of these beliefs in Rumi’s Ruba’i. In addition, the present study showed that the poet was not only the narrator of certain rituals and beliefs of his time; but also he has concentrated on the artistic thematization by rendering the current thoughts mystic, religious and anthropological for his addressee.
 

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Bidel Dehlavi’s poems- as one of the prominent figures of Persian literature who was living out of Iran’s geographical frontiers – include popular culture especially Iranian culture. In the present study, his poems will be examined from the view point of the crystallization of popular culture. It was demonstrated in the first chapter that although he is a non-Iranian poet; Bidel Dehlavi was strongly influenced by Iranian thought and culture to reflect the folklore in his poetry in different ways, consciously or unconsciously. In this research, the sources and origins of some of the popular traditions and beliefs of Bidel's poetry, which are common in Indian and Iranian cultures, have been analyzed and revealed that in this respect, Bidel’s social and literary vision is the cultural background of Iran and his poem reflects Iranian culture.

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Abstract
Folk beliefs, which are an integral element of the culture of a society, have an inextricable link with myth. To analyze such beliefs, it is imperative to investigate the mythological era and understand the ideas of the ancient time about the phenomena in the universe. It can be said that many of the rituals that are prevalent in people's daily lives today, are actually the mythical beliefs that have changed over time. Shifting from myth to ritual, preserving their mythological underpinnings, they have become folk beliefs, though they might have had major or minor changes. Among folk beliefs that have significant mythical representations, three rituals stand out: "marriage with a fountain", "breaking an egg to ward off a wound", and "passing a patient through a wall hole" that have been common among various Iranian ethnic groups for a long time. The present article, using a descriptive-analytic method, has rooted the three beliefs and explained their connection with myths. The findings show that all three of these rituals have a mythical origin; that is to say, the marriage with the springs is a remnant of the myth of sacrificing for the springs in order to please the owner of the water. After the shift from myth to ritual, it has turned into marriage with the spring. The egg-breaking ritual is also associated with the myth of the Seed of the Universe and it can be interpreted as the regeneration of the first creation. Finally, passing the patient through the wall hole is a reminiscent of returning to the womb and repeating the idea of birth. From the mythological perspective, this is a pure and ideal moment for the sake of its divinity.  

Keywords: Myth; folk beliefs; sacrifice; early creation; return to womb.
 
Research Background

Several studies on the relationship between myth and various elements of popular culture have been conducted. Among them, one can mention the following: Mozaffarian (2012) has examined the relationship between myths and folk tales. Parsansab and Manavi (2013) have dealt with the evolution of the "crow" from myth to popular culture. Mousavi and Spargham (2010) have criticized the mythology of the story "Orange and bergamot girl" and examined the cultural backgrounds of the use of orange, bergamot, and pomegranate in this story. In his article, Mokhtarian (2005) has tried to classify fairy tales based on myths. Motevaseli (2016) examined various aspects of the place of myths in the Persian folk literature.

Aims, questions, assumptions

The purpose of this study is to explain the origins of the myths of the three popular beliefs: "marriage with the spring", "breaking the egg to repel the sore eye" and "passing the patient through the hole in the wall". Therefore, in this article, we intend to answer these questions: Are the traces of the popular beliefs mentioned in this article traceable in mythology as well? Does the mythical position of these beliefs only belong to Iran? What is the mythical view behind these beliefs? The roots of the popular beliefs studied in this article refer to the ancient and distant mythology, which is one of the common intellectual commonalities in many parts of the world. The belief in the myth of sacrifice for the spring through marriage to the spring lies in the concept of reconstruction in the ritual of breaking an egg and returning to the ideal moment of creation via passing the patient through the hole in the wall.

Discussion

In all eras, myths play role in people's lives and they have stayed with us in the form of certain beliefs and rituals. Some of these myths are so ancient that it is not easy to reveal their presence in the current human beliefs and practices; however, they are prevalent in the popular beliefs and rituals, though people might not be conscious of them. Nonetheless, we find that their origin is the mythical beliefs and pristine thought of the primitive man. For this reason, popular beliefs are the best manifestation of ancient and mythical beliefs in our era, which directly/indirectly display mythical thoughts. According to some scholars, various elements of popular culture, such as stories, myths, and popular beliefs are the degraded and surviving form of the ancient myths in which mythological sanctity has faded (Bastid, 1991, pp. 42-46).

One of these popular beliefs is the ritual of marrying a spring, which is rooted in the ancient myths and expresses the mythical interest of snakes or dragons in girls and women. The ancient people believed that myths were used as a trick to satisfy dragons in order to release water; thus, marrying a spring is a technique of proximity, meaning marrying a dragon near the spring.

Another popular belief, the ritual of breaking an egg to repel a sore eye is another case in point. Since in many parts of the world myths are the origin of the creation of the primordial and cosmic eggs, in the mythology of myth and the rites of the people, the breaking of an egg is reminiscent of the first creation. It confirms the return to the beginning of creation and the primary health.

Another popular belief is the ritual of passing the patient through the hole. The organizers of this ritual have one goal: Imitation and repetition of labor (passing through the hole). Their main purpose of the ritual is to pass the patient through the hole, which means a new birth, resuscitation, and treatment of the patient through a new birth and return to the womb.

Conclusion

The results of the research show that myths and popular beliefs have a deep relationship with each other, and the main source of the beliefs we have today is the mythical ideas of the ancients. Although the passage of time has created changes in myths, according to the mythology, they have been manifested in the form of public rituals and beliefs in our current era. Understanding the mythological origins of popular beliefs is the key to understanding the myriad questions that have arisen regarding such beliefs. In this study, it was found that the ritual of marriage with the spring is the same evolutionary form of the myth of sacrificing water for the client in order to escape the drought. The ritual of breaking an egg to repel sore eye is rooted in the myth of the cosmic egg; because many ancient tribes believe that with the breaking of the cosmic egg that floated in absolute darkness, the universe was created; so, this egg is the beginning of creation. The patient's passing through a hole in a wall, mountain, or tree, which is done to cure the disease, is related to the myth of returning to the womb and the initial birth. It means taking the sick person to the past and the moment of birth when s/he came out healthy and undamaged from the mother's womb.

References

•  Bastid, R. (1991). Mythical knowledge (translated into Farsi by Jalal Sattari). Tehran: Toos.
•  Matevasoli, N. (2016). Study of the place of myths in Persian folk literature. Indexed on the Ittehad Khabar website under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Published: 20/ Nov /2016. Visited: 22/June /2020.
•  Mokhtarian, B. (2005). The proposed model for classifying fairy tales based on myths. Anthropology Letter, 4(8), 119-139.
•  Mousavi, M. & Spargham, S. (2010). Critique of the mythology of the story of the orange girl and the bergamot and the study of the cultural background of the use of orange, bergamot and pomegranate in this story. Literary Criticism, 3(11-12), 233-255.
•  Mozaffarian, F. (2012). Folk myths and tales. Quarterly Journal of Mystical Literature and Mythology, 8(28), 213-247.
•  Parsansab, M. & Manavi, M. (2013). The evolution of the crow from myth to popular culture. Journal Public Culture and Literature, 1(1), 71-92.

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• Formal attributes

• Different species of camels

• Camel equipment

• Transverse characteristics of the camels

•  Products and uses of the camels

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One of the main reasons of building Qadamgāhs (literally meaning the place of foot or the place of stepping) was the dreams a believer had of a saint. There are a large number of such buildings in Iran. In some cases, the dreams are inscribed on tablets in order to preserve the dream for future generations. This paper introduces five lustre ceramic tablets, which contain records of such dreams. The texts of two of them have been preserved completely, and significantly show astonishing similarities. The first is dated back to 1312 AD and belongs to Qadamgāh of Mehrīqābād. Its text mentions that Fakhr al-Din Hasan Tabari saw Imam Ali in a dream ordering him to build a shrine. According to the text of the second tile in Qadamgāh-i Khezr in the village of Yazdelan in 1607, someone saw Khezr in a dream who orders to reconstruct a ruined domed building. This article examines the differences and similarities between these two tablets from the Ilkhanid and Safavid periods, and analyzes them in detail. It can be said that these two tablets have a common content that have been written with the aim of documenting the reconstruction of a religious building borrowing the Iranian and Shi'at themes. These two examples show that the tradition of recording dreams on lustre tiles was not only prevalent at the glorious era of lustre production, but also extended to three centuries later.
Introduction
“Qadamgāh” refers to some places of pilgrimage in the Islamic world where a Prophet, Imam or saint has passed or has been seen in a dream. Dreaming has been one of the main reasons for building Qadamgāhs, in that, it was built when someone saw one of the saints in a dream and based on the saint’s order or his own decision, he called that place a Qadamgāh. This phenomenon, which sometimes led to the establishment of a building, has been common among Shi'ats. In some cases, commemorative tablets made of stones or tiles were used to record the dreams. Five lustre tiles, which belong to the Qadamgāhi buildings, have been identified in the region of Kashan, that contain a record of a dream. Three of them, which bear the name of a Qadamgāh, called Darb-e Mehriqābād, were produced in the fourteenth century. Although the tradition of writing on lustre tiles has continued until the Safavid period, no example containing a dream is known except for an unpublished tile from Qadamgāh-e Khezr in Yazdelan village. This tile, which dates back to 1015 AH/1607 AD, is full of symbolic and mythical signs. Interestingly, the Mehriqābād tiles dates back to 711 AH/1312 AD, and the Yazdelan tile have significant similarities with them in terms of form and content.
Research Background
The major research on lustre tiles has been done by Oliver Watson (1975, 1985). However, no research has been done on the Qadamgāhi lustre tiles, except for two papers written by Chahryar Adle about the tiles of Mehriqābād (Adle, 1972, 1982). Nonetheless, he has made some mistakes in reading the text and also did not notice the fifty-year difference in the date of these tiles. In addition, he was unable to identify the exact building of this Qadamgāh.
Discussion
There is a pair of circular lustre tiles in the Musée national de céramique de Sèvres, the text of which mentions the construction of a Qadamgāh in Kashan. The text of the tiles tells us that a person named Sayyed Fakhr al-Din Hassan Tabari finds himself in a dream in the middle of a crowd in the garden of Amir in Kashan. There, he sees Imam ‘Ali who tells him to construct a building in that place so that whoever wants to visit him can come to that position. Three centuries later, a lustre tile was installed in the Khezr Qadamgāh of Yazdelan, which narrates a dream that led to the construction of the building. According to its text, a person saw Khezr in a dream, who asked him to repair a domed building.
One of the similar and important elements in both dreams is their connection to the garden. In fact, the holy sites in question are located in the garden that was famous at that time. The timing of both dreams is interesting in its own way. The dream of Mehriqābād coincides with Eid al-Fitr and the dream of Yazdelan coincides with Nowruz. In fact, the dreamers have been influenced by the religious festivals at both times, which belong to a mythical and ritual time. Another common feature of both texts is the effort to document the dream, which mentions the exact characteristics of the place and time of the dream.
Conclusion
During the Ilkhanid period, as there was more religious freedom for Shi'ats, the opportunity to express and document such Shi'at dreams became more prominent. On the other hand, with the rise of the Safavids and the prevalent freedom for the Shi'ats, the emergence of Shi'at beliefs developed unprecedentedly. Although the two lustre tiles examined in this paper were made over a period of three centuries, they are certain significant similarities in their content. The main theme, the type of time and place, the sacred personality, the attention to documentation and the influence of Iranian culture in both examples are comparable. In fact, they both express an identical concern: the reconstruction of a religious building the location of which has sacred memories. Interestingly, in the inscriptions of both buildings discussed in this article, there are signs of pre-Islamic beliefs of the people of the region. However, this is far from the common traditions of Islam and is based mostly on popular beliefs.
References
Adle, Ch. (1972). Un disque de fondation en céramique (Kâšân, 711/1312), Journal Asiatique, CCLX (3‒4), 277‒297.
Adle, Ch. (1982). Un diptique de foundation en ceramique lustrée, Kašan 711/1312, In: idem, ed., Art et société dans le monde iranien, (pp. 199-218). Paris: Institut Français d’Iranologie.
Watson, O. (1975b). Persian lusterware, from the 14^th to the 19th centuries. Le Monde Iranien et l'Islam: Sociétés et Cultures, 3, 63-80.

Watson, O. (1985). Persian lusterware. Faber and Faber.

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One of the important characteristics of the excellence of a poem is having cultural supports, which itself consists of different subcategories. One of these subcategories is "Folk Beliefs" which every poet uses according to his studies in popular culture and communication with society. Folk beliefs are a set of beliefs, behaviors and actions. Despite the fact that in some cases, they do not have a scientific basis, they have always been the focus of people's attention. Our main goal in this research is to investigate the way of using folk beliefs and their functions in new sonnets. Also, we tried to categorize and analyze the beliefs used in the sonnet of this era using the analytical-critical method; in this way, we can reach the extent of the use of folk beliefs by the poets of new sonnet and show the role and function of these beliefs in their forms (the main representative of the emotional and romantic field of contemporary poetry). The findings of this research showed that the discussed poets have passed the folk beliefs from their lyrical mentality and have mainly used these beliefs in the service of poetry in order to have a more romantic effect on the audience in addition to the cultural richness of their poetry. Of course, the function of these beliefs in new sonnet is not only limited to poetry; rather, they have been used in the field of political, social, philosophical, etc. issues among others.
 

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The palm tree in its mythical nature is one of the Mesopotamian and Elamite vegetable gods, whose traces of its alien nature in human incarnation and its transformation have been left in the beliefs and customs of the people of southern Iran in relation to the myths of creation and fertility. The mythical history of the date palm in terms of anthropology is similar to most of the traditions and popular beliefs of the people of the south, and has led to beliefs such as the creation of the palm from human palm and knowing the palm tree as a companion in the south. The sanctity of the palm and beliefs such as that the palm has organs and conditions like human beings and rituals such as marriage, the dramatic threat and sacrifice of the palm, etc. are rooted in the myths of birth and fertility. The process of characterization of the people of the South from the palm tree in terms of the cycle of death and life and resurrection to the goddess of fertility, complement each other and express the perception of the cosmic position of the female force in the universe. This article is a descriptive-analytical field and library study to analyze the myths related to creation and fertility in the folk beliefs of the people of the south about the date palm based on the people of Jahrom and its mythological elements in customs and beliefs such as: birth and sanctity of palms. It has shown fertility, love, madness, death and the coffin of the palm tree.