Why March 8 in the village was called Dunkin's day and how in March "they looked at the weather for the summer"

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Russian countryside depended on bread, which meant the weather in summer. Therefore, signs were so popular in the spring that would tell whether to wait for rains or droughts, crops or disasters. They say that these signs are no longer valid due to global warming: the weather is more and more unpredictable. You can try to check it yourself.

Spring is a series of women's holidays

In the spring in Russia there were "Indian days". March 8 and Clara Zetkin and Rosa Luxemburg have nothing to do with it. After Easter, there was a week of Margosok, which ended on Sunday, on which women idolized with their best friends and neighbors, promising not to leave each other in trouble. And Avdotya Vesnovka opened the spring, she is Evdokia Plyushchikha, with her Dunkin day. According to the modern calendar, Avdotya falls just on the first of March, and before that it was celebrated on the fourteenth. Before the New Year was established by a royal decree in September (and after that in January), Avdotya began a series of New Year holidays.

In many places, it was on Avdotya that larks were baked, which then had to be thrown into the sky by girls and girls. Pregnant women went out to look at the sun, so that the child was just as "red" - beautiful and healthy. Girls made spring dolls with a red braid out of rags and threads, girls at marriageable age burned fires, called out to spring and birds, women refused to do any housework except those related to food. Midwives, and sometimes just old women, gathered snow at noon to wipe off all the girls in the house - for health.

It was believed that the first four days of the year they look at the weather for the whole year: in Avdotya - spring, the next day - summer, and further along the day in autumn and winter. If it was snowing on Avdotya, it promised a harvest. If the wind blew warm - the summer will be wet, and the cold wind and the summer promised cold.

The Avdotya Vesnovka holiday was trying to crawl over to other holidays. Already under the USSR, March 8, by inertia, was called Dunkin's Day, and Maslenitsa and Maslenitsa scarecrow were also often called Avdotya in Tsarist Russia - especially since Maslenitsa often coincided with Plyushchikha.

The next few days after Avdotya it was impossible to look at the sky: what if you see a shooting star? Then you will die, or at least get very sick. If it rained the next day after Plyushchikha, they rejoiced: the summer would be fruitful. The third day was the day of oatmeal: they tried to see this bird - then it will thaw very soon. They sang oatmeal (oat pies) and sang songs about oatmeal. If on the fourth day of the spring holidays it began to melt, then … signs said that it would not melt for a long time. If there were still snow drifts, they said that the grass would go late. You could go to the forest to look for hares. You will see that they are still walking in a white fur coat, which means that the snow will still fall.

On the fifth day, kokurki were baked - unleavened round pies with an egg inside. If someone fell ill that day, it was believed that the disease would not come off for a long time now. Finally, the “spring new year” ended with Timofei Vesnovey - it was believed that the spring, which had been handed down to Avdotya, should already come on this day. In total, it turned out six days of meeting spring.

To the Margoski, or Babya's brother, no signs were attached, because their date changed depending on when Easter is celebrated. On this day, a woman lit a fire outside the outskirts and fried large eggs on it, and while she was preparing, they sang spring songs. When they ate scrambled eggs, they could say: so that flax, they say, was born kudelen. Flax was considered more of a female culture, not only because it was women who processed it, spun and weaved it, but also because linen was a woman's personal property - it was taken with them as a dowry (to which the husband had no right), it was put aside for old age in order to sell and live on the proceeds, when it is no longer possible to work.

Fedor Skotnik, Taras Kumoshnik and others

They continued to look out for signs of the harvest throughout March, and at the same time they dealt with the usual spring affairs. After a week of spring holidays, the girls had to put their outfits in the chest - those who did not have time to get married before Maslenitsa, will not be in time for that in the near future. After all, first Lent, then Easter holidays, and then May, and in May they don't get married so as not to toil.

On March 8 (then it fell on March 21) we looked at what Easter week would be like. If it snows, it will be cold, it will be dry, and the Easter week will be dry. And the next day the women could not wash - otherwise the birds would fly back. March 10, on Taras Kumoshnik, was the only day when evil spirits could try to enter the house (usually, the evil spirits could not be near the icons that were in any hut) - therefore it was impossible to go to bed early, they would attack. And if on that day the door fell off its hinges - expect trouble. There could be any trouble - ruin, illness, quarrel.

On March 13, at Vasily Kapelnik, they looked at the icicles: if they are long, then the flax will grow long and give a lot of fiber for the threads. And on Gerasim Grachevnik, March 17, rooks were baked. No, not real - they were bread again. On this day it was impossible to put on new bast shoes, but if it is sunny, the summer will be berry.

March 22 was a bird's day again - Soroki. True, it was called so in honor of the Forty Martyrs, but still its alternative name was the Third Day. On Soroka, forty koloboks of oats or rye were baked. It was considered what the weather would be on that day - then it would be the same forty days. If frost hit that day, they said that millet would be born. In some places, larks were baked not at Avdotya, but at Soroki.

On March 25, on Feofan, they were expecting fog - then oats and hemp would be born, and they threw the hemp seed to the birds. And March 27 was a very important day - Fedor Skotnik. On this day, the cattle were taken out into the yard, washed, scratched, they talked conspiracies against diseases and watered "with silver" - by putting a coin or a ring in the water.

And signs for the whole March

If a woodpecker knocks in March, the spring will be cold and snowy. When the snowdrops have blossomed, it's time to plow - and sow three weeks after Gerasim Rookery. True, the weather made its own adjustments, and in order not to freeze the grain, they looked at the rooks. While they just fly around the nests - wait for the cold, but when they began to rebuild them - a day or two remained until the warmth. In the evenings, we checked the month - if it looks especially clear, sharp-horned, wait for frost. If the pussy willow blossomed at first only on the top of the head, then the sowing will be successful. If the rooks are screaming - to the rain. If the snow begins to melt on the nests from the south, the summer will be short and cold.

Probably, the March holidays still have pre-Christian roots, because they are associated with plowing and sowing, and not with the official calendar. And not only for them. Christian analogues of Old Church Slavonic holidays, or why the church could not defeat Maslenitsa and Ivan Kupala.