A Study of Religious Functions as Helper in the Story Mehr-va-Mah

The story "Mehr-va-Mah" is a Persian folkloric story which has been preserved both in poem and prose. Jamali Dehlavi and Hoseyni Shirazi have provided us with two verse adaptations of this story in the form of couplets. And the author of the prose version of the story, which appeared in the 9th century, is anonymous. Due to the presence in this story of fairies and magical characters, it can be put in the category of fairy tales. The present paper is a comparative analysis. The main problem of it is to analyze the typical Iranian folkloric story on the basis of Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale. The purpose of the paper is to examine the religious functions of "Mehr-va-Mah," the functions which were surely lacking in Propp's divisions. In this way, the real attempt of this study is to provide an Iranian model of morphology in the space of our native story and on the basis of the work of the Russian writer. This study will help us to identify the manifestations of religious functions in this story in actions like praying, betting, fasting, intercession, thanks-giving, and prostration. The author of "Mehr-va-Mah" has chosen his helpers from among the religious celebrities. Prophet Mohammad (P. B. U. H.) and Imam Ali (P. B. U. H.) are two religious celebrities in this story who, according to Propp's classifications, play the role of the helper.