Religious motifs : Overview. Search. About religious motifs
The motif Prayer is a part of: Ritual
Keywords:
Faith, speech, words, ritual
Prayers in a religious sense of the word, are adressed to one or more gods, divine or sacred persons in anticipation of help, blessings or a good relationship.
There are prescribed prayers, e.g. the Lord's Prayer and Ave Maria, and there are prayers, which are spontaneous and individual. Both kinds are present in Andersen's tales.
Example 1:
And if sometimes the mocking words sounded to her,
Make fun of everything, laugh in jest,
Laugh along with all the rest!
a stronger voice came from the Blind Girl's heart,
Trust in God and thyself; pray then
His will be done forever; amen.
Example 2:
But the Devil could not put up with this. With more cunning than that of ten thousand men, he devised a way to bring about his purpose. From the marsh he collected little bubbles of stagnant water, and muttered over them a sevenfold echo of untrue words, to give them strength. Then he blended bought heroic poems and lying epitaphs, as many as he could find, boiled them in the tears of envy, colored them with grease paint he had scraped from the faded cheeks of an old lady, and from all this he fashioned a maiden, with the appearance and carriage of the Blind Girl, the blessed angel of sensibility. Then the Devil's plot was consummated, for the world knew not which of the two was the true one, and indeed how could the world know?
Trust in God and thyself; pray then
His will be done, forever; amen.
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