From an astronomical point of view, the vernal equinox marks the arrival of spring, and the length of the day exceeds the length of the night. Many ancient folk traditions are associated with this period of March, even if they are not strictly associated with the day of the equinox. The end of March is full of popular holidays.

Sometimes it is about sowing, about cleaning the garden, about wakes or about traditions with divine horses and the song of the cuckoo. In the article, you can read about the astronomical significance of the equinox, as well as what stars can be seen in the sky.

Vernal equinox in astronomy

The vernal equinox, which occurs almost every year on March 20, marks the arrival of spring from an astronomical point of view. From this date, the length of the day (compared to the night) will continuously increase and the length of the night (compared to the day) will decrease until June 21, the time of the summer solstice.

What Augustus Scriban says in his “Dictionary of the Romanian Language” (1939) about the equinoxes is a sympathetic description because it is in the older Romanian language.

• *echinocțiŭ n. (lat. aequi-noctium, d. aequus, equal, and nox, noctis, night; Fr. équinoxe). The time when the days are equal to the nights. – This circumstance happens twice a year: March 21 and September 21, because when the two poles of the earth are at the same distance from the sun, its light spreads from one to the other and illuminates half of the earth, while the other half remains in darkness. The first of these epochs corresponds to the vernal equinox, and the second to the autumnal equinox. The equator is called the equinox because it is the equinox when the Sun is on that line, ie March 21 and September 21.

The word “equinox” comes from the French word “équinoxe”, which, in turn, comes from the Latin “aequinoctium”, formed from “aequus” – “equal” and “nox”, “noctis” – “night”.

As you know, the apparent movement of the Sun in the celestial sphere, which is determined by the real movement of the Earth along its orbit, generates for our latitudes the inequality of the duration of day and night in different seasons of the year due to the approximately fixed position in space of the axis of rotation of the Earth, as well as its inclination to the plane of its orbit . Thus, on the celestial sphere, the Sun during the year passes a large circle called the ecliptic (which actually marks the plane of the Earth’s orbit), which makes an angle of 23° 27′ with the celestial equator.

At the spring equinox, the Sun crosses the celestial equator, passing from the southern hemisphere of the celestial sphere to the northern. When the Sun is at this point, called the vernal equinox, it describes a diurnal movement along the celestial equator, a phenomenon that determines the equality of day and night on that day, regardless of latitude. At the latitudes of our country, for which the average value can be considered 45°, this figure also represents the average value of the height of the Sun above the horizon at noon. At the same time, on this day the Sun rises in the eastern part of the world and sets in the western part of the world, according to the description of the equinox on the website of the astronomical observatory “Admiral Vasile Urseanu”.

The end of March and “such a fun spring holiday”

This is what G. F. Chaushan says in “Superstitions of the Romanian People” about the holidays associated with the arrival of spring and about the main idea: the return to life. The book was written more than a century ago.

• “The next return of spring, the rebirth of all nature after a gloomy and hot winter, was always met with the same mood and cheerfulness as it is now. The ancients embodied this regular return of spring in the myth of Proserpine with great skill. As soon as a blade of grass starts to spin, and a leaf like a penny appears in the forest, from that time the fun spring festival begins. The customs of thousands of years are preserved in the people with such fidelity that it is as if they were born yesterday. Many times the time of their conversion to paganism coincided with major Christian holidays. Then these holidays only have Christian names. However, in reality they are a revival of the old religion.”

(n. r Proserpina, also called Libera and known in Greek mythology as Persephone, was for the Romans the goddess of the underworld and the daughter of the agricultural goddess Ceres).

There are many important holidays in March: Marțişorul, Babele, Mucenicii, Annunciation, Lăsata Secului or Caii lui Sântoader.

In general, all religious holidays were for the peasants a kind of reference point for various agricultural works.

Plows for plowing began in Muchenichy, corn was sown in Buna Vestire. The peasant tried to spend his time observing what was happening in nature, observing the behavior of animals, in order to better organize his time for various agricultural works.

The agricultural year is sometimes said to begin on March 9, sometimes on March 22, about the equinox. This is not a contradiction, because sometimes dates are, as they say, “old style”. Ion Ginoiu believes that this date marked the autumnal equinox according to the old calendar. “Many holidays were celebrated according to the old calendar, because all the observations that the peasants made about nature related to the old holiday.”

Romania officially adopted the “new style”, the Gregorian calendar, based on a decree published in March 1919 in the Official Gazette, so April 1 became April 14, 1919, with a difference of 13 days.

March and the extremely busy end of the holidays

On March 25, an important holiday is celebrated: the Annunciation (Annunciation, from Slavic, blagověštenije), which is connected with a number of things. Then the trees were fumigated, garbage was removed from the gardens to stimulate fertility. There were also forecasts related to the course of the weather and said that the weather would be the same on Easter or Floris. From the Annunciation, it is said that the cuckoo begins to sing.

The Annunciation is the first great holiday of spring and in the past. On this day, the gardens were cleaned and bonfires were made from plant residues in the gardens.

The celebration, which was important in ancient times, is called “Cai lui Sântoader” and lasted eight days, according to Lăsata Secului.

Lăsata Secului is the last day before the start of Lent (especially the Easter Lent. There were festivities with games, food and drinks: “It was the last Sunday to celebrate with the youth of the village. Maidens played music and went around the village with music, singing and humming” (…) In every family, a meal with meat was prepared and there was a treat: “When the bag is empty, people eat better.” (idem; Vadu Izei); “On Sunday, people prepare delicious food, eat and have fun (… ) The next day, women cleaned the dishes with ash to prepare for fasting: “On Monday morning, women washed all the dishes with ashy lye, so that they could be eaten for fasting”, – mentions in the “Dictionary of Regionalisms and Archaisms from Maramures”, second edition of signed by Dorin Stef.

• “The Santoaders are a divine family of eight beautiful boys dressed in traditional festive costumes with pigtailed hooves and raven tails, headed by Santoaderul cel Mare or Santoaderul cel Ciop. It was believed that they enter houses with boarders and take girls to play, fly with them, beat them with their hooves, etc. Therefore, no girl left the house during the week of Santoader’s horse to go to the sesator,” writes Ion Ginoiu in the Romanian Peasant Calendar.

Here it was also expedient, since the winter seder was ending, so people needed more rest, because the night was getting shorter and the work in the fields began.

This is what Ion Ginoiu says about the Annunciation

• “The Annunciation or the Annunciation is the day when the Christian Church celebrates the news brought to the Virgin Mary by the Archangel Gabriel that she will give birth to a Son without a forerunner – Jesus Christ. The holiday, located in the immediate vicinity of the vernal equinox, when swallows fly in and the cuckoo begins to sing, is called Cuckoo Day in the folk calendar. On the Annunciation, many actions were performed to purify the space, drive away snakes from the house, insects and caterpillars from the gardens: fumigating buildings, yards, people and livestock with incense and burnt cloths (Transylvania, Banat); to make noise to scare away evil forces by ringing a bell tied to the leg (Transylvania) or by hitting animals (Banat); setting fires in gardens and orchards; removing blankets and cloths from drawers to air them out.’

What is the weather like on March 20

March is a capricious month, and this is evidenced by the data on weather conditions in recent years. In some years, the temperature exceeds +23 degrees, and in others it even snows on the plains.

On Monday, March 20, 2023, thermometers will show the average air temperature, which will have much higher values ​​than usual for this period.

The precipitation regime will be excessive in the western and northwestern regions, as well as locally in the central regions. The region of the Apuseni Mountains and the Eastern Carpathians in the north will also be affected. Otherwise, the pulvometric mode will be ineffective.

The weather in Bucharest will continue to be warmer than expected for this time of year. The degrees on the thermometers will be around 18 degrees, the probability of precipitation is quite low. The wind will be weak and moderate, the sky will be partly cloudy.

Weather forecast for Monday, March 20, 2023, in the main cities of the country

Maximum temperatures on Monday, March 20, 2023 in the main cities of the country:

Timisoara: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 20%, Humidity: 63%, Wind: 8 km/h

Oradea: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 0%, Humidity: 59%, Wind: 18 km/h

Baia Mare: 16 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 20%, Humidity: 59%, Wind: 8 km/h

Cluj-Napoca: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 52%, Wind: 6 km/h

Sibiu: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 51%, Wind: 8 km/h

Alba Iulia: 18 degrees Celsius, precipitation: 10%, humidity: 52%, wind: 10 km/h

Kraiova: 19 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 56%, Wind: 8 km/h

Tirgu Jiu: 18 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 20%, Humidity: 55%, Wind: 6 km/h

Suceava: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 58%, Wind: 10 km/h

Bacau: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 49%, Wind: 14 km/h

Botosani: 16 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 55%, Wind: 8 km/h

Wednesday: 14 degrees Celsius, precipitation: 10%, humidity: 55%, wind: 13 km/h

Brasov: 16 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 51%, Wind: 5 km/h

Rain: 18 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 50%, Wind: 11 km/h

Buzeu: 19 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 48%, Wind: 13 km/h

Market: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 51%, Wind: 10 km/h

Iasi: 17 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 50%, Wind: 11 km/h

Galati: 18 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 53%, Wind: 8 km/h

Braila: 18 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 52%, Wind: 8 km/h

Constanta: 12 degrees Celsius, precipitation: 10%, humidity: 73%, wind: 14 km/h

Tulcha: 16 degrees Celsius, Precipitation: 10%, Humidity: 59%, Wind: 18 km/h