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Old encyclopedias are among the most important sources of preserving the folklore in Persian literature. Among these texts is Alaei’s Nezhatnameh authored by Shahmardan Ebn Abelkheyr in the late fifth century. In addition to the classification of the common science of its era, it includes the important and fundamental elements of folklore. Refering to the rituals and folk beliefs about plants is one of the most important themes of popular culture in this work. In addition to providing scientific and pseudo-scientific facts derived from earlier sources and his own observations and experiences, the author has alluded to a large number of beleifs and rituals with respect to productivity, properties of plants and trees, fighting off the pests, repelling the evil eye, improving and increasing the yield, some of the implications of climate events such as the frog cries signifying the coming of rain, the relationship between trees and humans, false threatening of the tree to guarantee its productivity, the role of plants in dream interpretation, and other odd characteristics. The purpose of this study is to extract, sort, and check the plant-related folk rituals and beliefs in Nezhatnameh as well as quantitatively and qualitatively explore its origins and backgrounds besides an unmatched evaluation of this text with some similar texts in this particular field

Keywords: Key words: Old encyclopedias, Alaei’s Nezhatnameh, Folklore, plants, beliefs and rituals

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