Shrovetide (first Sunday before Lent)

published on 2/26/11 12:49 PM

Photo: BGNES

This is Radio Bulgaria’s Folk Studio with the story about traditions performed on the first Sunday before Lent.

The diverse winter calendar of Bulgarian traditions is remarkable with a few feasts that include ritual blessing with water. At the point of transition from winter to spring Bulgarians make big fires to welcome the new season. There are a few celebrations involving fire and jumping over it for the sake of sound health. Granny Martha, 1 March, and Blagovets (Lady-Day), 25 March, are celebrated on fixed dates. Usually they are preceded by the Shrovetide cycle. Stay with weekly Folk Studio on Radio Bulgaria to find out about the day’s symbolism and the ways it is celebrated today.

Exactly seven weeks prior to Orthodox Easter is the start of the longest period in the year in which Christians abandon eating any food of animal origin. On the eve of Lent is the last feast when milk, butter and all dairy products are allowed, including cheese, so the name of the first Sunday before Lent is called Sirni Zagovezni, or Cheese Shrovetide. Under the church canon meat has been forbidden a week earlier, during Meat Shrovetide (second Sunday before Lent). The week preceding Lent is dedicated to activities and food that will come under ban during the Lent itself. Public chain dancing takes place every day, and fires are lit during the nights. Twigs for the fires are gathered right after the New Year. For the fire rituals the young men in the village gather juniper or pine sticks in the main. They use easily ignitable materials and prepare torches for Shrovetide festivities.

In the Bulgarian tradition the first Sunday before Lent is known with other names apart from Sirni Zagovezni. One of them is Pokladi derived from the Bulgarian for bonfire. According to scholars the church feast of Sirni Zagovezni when Christians practice forgiveness with their friends and family, coincides with a pagan ritual held exclusively on New Moon. About the ancient fiery rituals we can learn from a 7 c. manuscript that in fact bans them. Here how it goes: “We order the abandonment of igniting fires outside workshops and homes on New Moon, as well as jumping over fires as in some sort of obsolete rituals. And if this is done by a priest they shall be unfrocked, and laymen – excommunicated.” Despite this ban the festival survives to this day in some parts of Bulgaria.

The fire festivities are particularly popular in the Rhodope Mountains in Southern Bulgaria, and in some parts of the Balkan Range and Sredna Gora Mountain, Central Bulgaria. In those places huge fires are built and children swing torches in a bid to drive away the evils of winter. Jumping over fires is done to protect the community from illness and serpents. It is curious to know that the jumping over fire ritual is known to neither Eastern nor Western Slavs. Some scholars believe that it has been inherited from a more ancient population of present-day Bulgaria.

The festive night on the first Sunday before Lent is the time for chain dances and a lot of singing. In some villages, after the fires have been built, young men ignite arrows and throw them in the yards of the girls they fancy. In the morning the girls should count the arrows. The one who has got the most of the fiery messages is believed to be the most desired and the most beautiful. When throwing the arrows the boys recite phrases asking the girl’s father to allow marriage. Some of the phrases include dirty language but parents do not sanction such behavior, because they believe that on this night more freedom of speech won’t hurt much. After all, it is the night heralding the Long Lent – without any chain dancing, singing and witty exchanges. The ritual of asking forgiveness is performed before the dinner is served. The younger members of the family kiss the hands of the older ones hoping they will be forgiven. With forgiveness, anybody will begin the big trial of fasting with a clean heart.

A red thread, a boiled egg and a piece of white khalva (a later addition to the ritual) – all these are necessary for the merriest moment of festivities on the first Sunday before Lent. The red thread is tied on one of the ceiling beams and a boiled egg, a piece of cheese and an ember are tied to its free end. Then the thread is swayed in a circle passing by family members, who – with hands on their backs – try to catch the egg with their mouths. The one who does so will be the luckiest in the family during the year.

Translated by Daniela Konstantinova

По публикацията работи: Albena Bezovska

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Shrovetide (first Sunday before Lent)

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