Эссе ушло на проверку, так что можно его выложить здесь.

Dracula's association with the moon ties him with the lunar goddess like Hecate. Hecate “was variously associated with crossroads, entrance-ways, dogs, light, the moon, magic, witchcraft, knowledge of herbs and poisonous plants, ghosts, necromancy, and sorcery”. (2) It's significant, that to destroy him, there were used men's tools: a stake (an obvious phallic symbol), a hammer, a knife. His power was feminine by origin and manifests in the moonlight, the witchcraft and shape-shifting.

Dracula is called, “stregoica”—witch, “vrolok” and “vlkoslak”. (1) The stregoica (strigoaica), that means witch, or the Strigă - “in superstitions, is an imaginary being, a woman who bothers or tortures little children”. (3) Harker saw how Dracula bring to his castle children, and later Lucy, as a vampire, hunts only on children.

Dracula frequently shows his ability to witchcraft. He can command the wind, as he called the storm when reaching Whitby's harbour. He can come “in mist which he create” and “on moonlight rays as elemental dust”. (1) Also he can command animals and his appearance presaged by dog’s howling. The dog is Hecate’s animal, she was “accompanied by a dog” or “heralded by the howling of a dog”. (2)

One more of Dracula’s ability is that he can change into a wolf (dog) or a bat. Thus comes names like “vrolok” and “vlkoslak”, a misspelled “vlŭkodlakŭ” (3) - werewolf. So Dracula not only an Undead ex-human, he also is partly animal.
He has a double nature of someone living who exist on the border of two worlds: alive and dead, natural and unnatural, male and female.

Dracula represent the ancient way for gaining the power, given by lunar goddess that demand to sacrifice his humanity to become united with the uncanny. When he was defeated by Van Helsing’s team, it symbolise the victory of the modern way, the science that gives tools to men to overcome the chaos of the nature.

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Hecate from Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/?title=Hecate#cite_ref-60
Transylvanian Babel by Cristina Artenie www.academia.edu/3341871/Transylvanian_Babel


Но это еще не все! One of my fellow coursers, Radu Diaconu, сам из Румынии. И он заметил, что слово "strigă" для него всегда имело значение "barn owl" - сова-сипуха. В беседе всплыло еще одно слово: итальянское "strega" означающее колдовство, ведьмовство. Раду начал копать этимологию этих слов и нашел кучу интереснейшей информации. Я просто скопирую его пост, все лавры тут принадлежат ему!

"The Romanian "strigă" (noun) is identical with "strigă", meaning "he/she/it/they scream/s" - a form of the verb "a striga" - "to scream". These words are related - they're both from the Latin "strix", meaning "owl" - and there seems to be another intermediary, undocumented Latin verb form *"strigare" - which is identical to the Romanian noun "strigare", meaning "scream"(noun). Of course, the connection to the owl and its screech is obvious.

The Italian "strega", however, only seems to mean "witch"; there's an Italian "stregare", too, but that's just the verb - "to bewitch". This is derived from the Latin "striga", meaning "witch". A whole different word from the Latin "strix".

So yes, they both come from Latin, but from different words. This is very interesting, since, if the Romanian "strigă"(n) actually does have the second meaning of "witch" (of which I'm not aware, but since the DEX gives it, then I'm probably wrong), then that means that this second meaning was derived on Romanian soil, since the Latin "strix" only means "owl"; notice how the Italian "strega" - "witch" is a direct successor of the Latin "striga" - also "witch" (It could be argued that it might be derived from the Latin "strix" as well, but I think that the Italian phonological derivation rules infirm this hypotheses). So, while there is an implied connection between the owl and the witch in the Romanian "strigă", no such connection is present in the Italian or Latin words.

This is relevant for our discussion of Dracula; the Romanian "strigă" refers to the barn owl - a white bird - traditionally a messenger of death: its screech ("strigăt" or "strigare") was considered a bad omen. Morphologically, "strigoi" (meaning "ghoul") is simply an augmentative masculine form of the feminine "strigă" ("barn owl"), while "strigoaică" is the feminine version of "strigoi". The fact that "Dracula" is named, in the book, "stregoica", means that, at least indirectly, it is associated with these folk creatures - all of which are colored white!

Considering how, in the novel, the color white appears not once just before something evil is about to occur, I think there's an intriguing relationship between it, the protagonist and the above-mentioned supernatural creatures.

What's also interesting - and in the same vein as your essay - is that Dracula is referred to with the feminine "stregoica", not the masculine "strigoi". Could he be an androgynous supernatural being? This could bring new light on the reading of the novel."
class.coursera.org/fantasysf-009/forum/thread?t...

Вообще упустить сову, как одно из животных связанных с ночью, луной и колдовством - огромное мое упущение! Правда в эссе все это все равно бы не влезло. Но мне все ольше хочется развить эту тему, когда появиться время...