Symbols, carols and pagan customs mark, according to Romanian tradition, the last day of the old year and the first day of the new year, news.ro notes. In Muntenia, they walk with a goat, in Moldova – with a bear, in Bukovina – “maskari”, and on the night between years they put mistletoe, grapes and figs on the table for abundance.

The period between Christmas and Epiphany mixes old pagan holidays (Field Dionysia, Brumulia, Saturnalia, Dies natalis Salis invictis), reinterpreted from a Christian, peasant and theological point of view, according to the researcher Sherban Angleescu, who tells in “Winter Holidays” about carols from the last days of the year

“In practice, carol forms occupy almost the entire territory of twelve days,” he explains, describing the territories that are symbols of carolers at the end of the year. “In Moldova and Muntenia they walk with the New Year’s Goat, and in Transylvania at Christmas, but this is not an absolute rule.”

In the volume “Romanian Holidays” Vlad Manoliu writes that “between Christmas and Epiphany (in some areas only during the three days of Christmas) children walk with the Star.” They are called “stars”, “carols”, “edges”. He explains how he walks through the village: “In Muntenia, the rascals go around the night before and on St. John’s day with some special curses. They are called Jordanians and are led by a priest. He wears a calderusa with agiasma in which others wet motorcycles and jordan visitors. A guy from the crowd carries a wooden skewer into which the donated meat is stuck. The fog moves through the village, from house to house, imitating the Epiphany service. The hosts are sprinkled, then lifted three times in their arms. Sometimes the master of the house fights with the Jordanian and, if he wins, gives him a gift. Other owners, joking more, sit on a log or a cart, and the Jordanians have to lift them with them. In the end I give them money, meat and drink. The crowd is especially looking for Iona and John, whom they have forcibly set out to baptize them and will not forgive them unless they receive something in return. Especially the Jordanian girls in the class.”

General advice in the Romanian tradition

Antoineta Olteanu wrote some general tips in “Calendars of the Romanian People” related to the end of the year. “The year ends, and the owner has to take care of everything, whether the water has collected on the seeds, whether trees and bushes have not been cut down, whether the livestock is well cared for and cleaned. , fed, well bedded, exposed to the air, if in addition to dry fodder it is not possible to give root crops, if it is not possible to use greens on the street, if the water for livestock and poultry does not freeze in the yard. , if the covered trees have enough air. The cellar, if something has become moldy in it, should be smoked with pumice stone and aired from time to time. Lettuce and other vegetables, if there is little snow, cover them with leaves or thorns. Winter is not for a person to be lazy, but to rest after the hard work of the previous year. Livestock should be kept especially clean and salt should not be thrown into it. Take out the garbage. In severe frosts, the windows in the cellars must be closed. It should be warm in the stables, because then the cattle eat less. The chaff is scalded and, mixed with fodder turnips or potatoes, is given to cattle in this way. This is how fodder is cleaned,” the historian writes in the “Village Calendar for the Commonwealth of Nations 1918.”

New Year customs

In the past, the month of December was also called Undrea, but also Luna lui Cojoc, Ningău or Luna lui Andrei. In the world of the Romanian village, preserved traditions, customs and traditions represent an unwritten national treasure and folk wisdom.

The list of Romanian traditions and customs includes, in addition to carols, masked games, parades, popular theater and dances typical of the end of the year.

Pluguşor is a custom practiced by Romanians since ancient times to celebrate the New Year.

“Plowing or ploughing, which is done by children and young men in separate groups, sometimes involves the physical presence of a plow. The text, a versified history of bread production (colac), has the necessary features of a myth. Speaking at the sacred time, the plowman tells about the birth of bread, in which almost all members of the community participate successively, and finally the bread is distributed to everyone. The whole village gathers into a coil, which symbolically contains all of them, and then disintegrates into equal parts. The body of the bread will equally live in each of the actors and witnesses of the rite,” writes Sherban Anglesku in “Winter Holidays”.

An agrarian custom structured on the carol model, Mersul cu Buhaiul is a tradition that has survived for hundreds of years in Romanian villages. The Bugai custom is practiced on New Year’s Eve, between sunset and midnight. The buhai object is a beard (bito), one end of which is covered with a piece of well-stretched sheepskin, from the center of which hangs a slimna (mane) of horse hair, which makes a serious, strange and unmusical sound, reminiscent of a bull’s roar. Sometimes the bull is decorated and put on ram’s horns wrapped in colored paper and tassels. Groups of haters wear traditional costumes, decorated hats, whips and bells, and the hosts reward them with apples, nuts, pretzels and buns.

Another archaic custom that takes place on New Year’s Eve is the bear game, a popular masked game involving haters in disguise. The costume mask is made from the fur of a whole animal and is decorated with two red tassels on the head. The playing of the Bear brings fertility, and the sounds of whistles, drums and gongs will draw heat away from the earth, making the soil more fertile.

Playing goat is an ancient custom that is still preserved among Romanians and is part of winter traditions. On New Year’s Day, through the folk theater that presents the “Goat Game” through the cycle of “transformations” (death, burial, mourning, resurrection), we actually participate in a dramatic ritual intertwined with elements of a cult.

According to Romanian traditions, walking with the Goat and welcoming the haters in every Christian home brings good luck and prosperity to the family, and it is also an important custom for the peasants, who considered playing the Goat to invoke the divine power to attract rich fruits. A cult animal, in ancient times the goat was associated with the cult of fertility. The ritual action of this game symbolizes the burial of the old year and the rebirth of the new year.

According to researcher Sherban Anglescu, the goat and its game represent a ritual that creates a cruel image. “A simple and intricate structure of wood or, exceptionally, of wire and metal bars constitutes the support, the spine of the goat, which supports the horned head with its movable upper jaw. The goat driver, hidden under a canvas from which strips of colored paper or plant threads hang, furiously and rhythmically waves his goat on the face, threatening the audience. The acrobatic jumps of the goat, the sound of striking jaws, the sound of a bell hanging from its jaws, the glitter of mirrors, often fixed on the goat’s textile fur, make up a deliberately loud, fierce and comic image for the same time in which the priests may have rightly seen the figure of the devil. .

As a New Year’s custom, Sorkova hoda is practiced especially by children. The etymology of the word “sorcova” comes from the Bulgarian word surov, which means “raw greens” and refers to a shriveled green branch used by haters in ancient times. For a hater, Sorkov takes the place of a magic wand and has the property of imparting health and youth to carolers.

In his book “Bucharest” in 1935, Paul Moran wrote about a city where noise and snow were precious. “In the parks, itinerant photographers blow their fists and show photos over the grill every minute. Cars made for temperate climates make strange noises. Children take off their sleds and slide to the cemetery: the end of the race is among the graves. Gypsies sell flowers, but they are paper flowers, Christmas sorrel, red roses and white and gold daisies; they resemble grains of wheat and wish you to live, bloom like apple trees, like brushes, or live, grow old like an apple, like a hair, like a rose. Masked children pull a cart with a Christmas tree and come to beg under the door, knee-deep in snow.”

superstitious

Some of the most famous superstitions are related to money, luck and prosperity.

On the eve of the New Year, they say that it is good to have money in your pocket, but it is also not good to give money on December 31 and January 1, so as not to be without money for the whole coming year. In some regions of the country, women bake bread in which money is hidden, and whoever finds the coins will be lucky with money all year.

It is believed that there is mistletoe on the table on New Year’s Eve for good luck.

Another superstition related to wealth, which is respected by many, says that on the first day of the New Year, a dark-haired man will enter the house first (they say that blondes and redheads bring bad luck, and so do women). The guest must enter the house with a sprig of mistletoe, bread and salt.

The superstitious will have grapes and figs on the New Year’s table – a symbol of abundance.

It is said that it is good to wear something red on New Year’s Eve, and to have new clothes on January 1, for good luck.

It is known from old-timers that it is not good to hang the calendar of the new year before its end, because it brings bad luck.

On the first day of the year, it is not appropriate to throw anything away, not even garbage, because we are throwing away luck.

They also say that on New Year’s Eve, they do not cook food from poultry meat, because just as a chicken digs up the ground and scatters it, so luck and well-being in the house disappear.

On the first day of the new year, do not aim, do not pray, so as not to invite impoverishment into your home. People say that whoever sleeps on Vasyl’s Day will be lazy all year.