Abstract:
My subject is the appearance of milk as a symbol in the proverbs. ‘The land fl owing with milk and honey’ is clearly a good place to be, but we do not know any more why exactly ‘of milk and honey’. On the basis of a collection of Hungarian proverbs, supplemented by examples from three major European languages, I try to argue that the archtype of milk carries the same meanings in each of the cases. The arch-type being a basic tendency instead of a defi nite motive, I have tried to divide the meanings of milk into the categories of happiness, wealth, life, force, fecundity, grace and sacrifi ce - and I have tried to put the proverbs into these.
