Manifestation of Archetypes in the Encyclopedia of Afsanehaye Mardoume Iran

The signs of collective unconsciousness appear as archetypes in literary works including myths, tales and legends. The question is how to look for such archetypes. Indeed, efficient methods are needed in this regard. There is also a need for a clear understanding of archetypal identities to recognize the self of tale characters by using the morphology of tales. In this study, bold archetype representations are uncovered by  analyzing mythical and symbolic backgrounds. As many as 97 Iranian stories were studied for old wisdom representation. At first, the self-characteristics, selfishness, guidance and generosity of old wisdom representations were searched in the text. The findings reveal that such characteristics exist in such characters as phoenix (for 41 times), horse (30), demon (9), fairy (4), gazelle (2), old lady (2), lion (2), dog (2), old bird (1), golden bird (1), eagle (1), crow (1), snake (1), talking bird (1), sugar bird (1) and ant (for 2 times). Accordingly, it is possible to find the characters which represent archetypal wisdom. The characters who have selfishness, guidance ability and generosity help the readers. Phoenix, horse, demon and fairy, which have mythical and symbolic values, are found to have the highest frequency. In fact, they convey a profound content of archetypes. Lion, dog, golden bird, eagle, crow, talking bird are the independent characters of the tales.