The goal of the present research is introducing the detention and the "freedom deprivation" themes as instruments in ethnological sciences. The process is unfolded through identifying and describing the way freedom deprivation is perceived and assessed by a traditional community. Thus, unlike the approaches found so far which were limited by a strict reference at the penitentiary or criminal processes, the freedom deprivation phenomenon is described from the perspective of the community general perception, applied mainly in the old rural civilization from the entire territory of Oriental Romanity.

The detention is first of all morphologically placed. The placement process is carried on through examples and comments of the ways various freedom deprivation forms, known into the archaic village life, are reflected (slavery, conscription, familial captivity, the banishment, the ritual captivity etc.).
The detention phenomenon itself, especially the jail confinement, is then analyzed from distinctive literary updating perspectives (the world of detention, its symbolism, its causes etc.). The process results in identifying certain groups of topics that form the detailed picture of theme representation in the Romanian folklore

The analyze of the theme results in revealing numerous elements of folkloristic novelty related to motifs such as metamorphosis, sacrifice immolation, the outlaw theme, folkloric formulas, the religious format of rural civilization (the Christian theme of captivity and release), the anti-theme of detention, the feminine specific a.o.

The study is accompanied and supported by a representative collection of texts, fully covering all folklore genres and species "from the Adriatic Sea to over the Dniester and from the Pindus Mountains to the Wooded Carpathians and Podolia." The anthology has a detailed critical and explicative apparatus, meant to ensure the widest accessibility for the included texts.

The study is concluded by a glossary covering the specific lexical area for the detention phenomenon (common terms and toponyms).

Besides the dominant ethnological and folkloristic dimensions, The Folklore of Detention offers exciting new multidisciplinary approaches, mostly useful to those interested in the philosophy of culture, sociology, penology, political sciences, ethics and theology.

Key Words

- freedom, detention, exile (banishment), slavery, prison, captivity, outlaw, metamorphosis, petrification, immolation, punishment, release;
- traveling formula, anti-theme, estem, thematic resonance, the feminine specific, oriental Romanity;
- ethnology, folklore, anthropology, penology, theology.