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| Saint George's Day |
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It is a folk holiday in honour of Saint George who is the patron of shepherds and herds. This holiday has a lot of rituals connected to various spheres of Bulgarian life. The typical cattle rituals are interwoven with rituals connected with agriculture, health and wellbeing.
In the spring night before the holiday lasses and girls gather flowers and herbs from the fields for the ritual feeding of the sheep and cattle. Three wreaths are made from the flowers: one for the sheep that will be milked first, one for the lamb that will be given as a sacrifice for the saint and one for the bucket with milk in it. The homes and the cattle sheds are decorated with green spring leaves. The shepherds take the herds out for a grazing before sunrise and when they come back a ritual milking is performed. A lamb is slaughtered on Gergjovden as a sacrifice to the patron saint. A big table for the whole village is set on the green fields in front of the church yard, outside the village or near the cattle sheds. Other ritual meals are put on the table except for the roasted lamb. The Gergjovden bread has a special place on the table. In the Eastern parts of Bulgaria the young girls stand up next to the table so that the hemp goes tall. Then they rush into the fields and the children throw crumbs from the bread at them as they believe that brings fertility. The chain dance circular Horo leaded by the best shepherd or a pregnant woman with a green branch in her hand is played around the table all day long. Everybody swings on cradles because it brings health. For the same reason early in the morning on the holiday healthy and ill people roll themselves into the dewy grass. The hosts burry a red Easter egg in the middle of the field for fertility. At some places people set the straw left from the Christmas dinner on fire in the fields.
To prevent from magic that may take the fruit in the fields and milk in the cattle away, people put lump of salt and a woman's belt on the inner side of the door so that the cattle could go through it as they come from the grazing. The salt is put in their food on the other day. In some regions the lasses predict their future wedding by Laduvane.
Source: hostinguk.com
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| Monday, May 02, 2011 |
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| Office Space |
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| Location: |
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