Winter Solstice

Slavic beliefs

 

The Generous Gody (Generous Christmas)

It’s a holiday which origins are in Slavic ancestors traditions. During the winter solitice, people were celebrating the triumph of the light over darkness, as the days were going to be longer. The Nature was prepearing for the spring awakening. Currently the winter solitice falls on the night of December 21st to 22nd, but back then it mostly fell on 24th (however, in the East it was January 6th).

 The Generous Day had different names in different regions. The most popular are Godowe Święto (Godowe Festival), Szczodruszka (Godowe Holiday), or the Feast of the Winter Sun. In the territories of today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia, Generous Day was called Kruczan. Another name for this day, among eastern tribes, was kolęda (carol).

Unfortunately, the ancient Slavs never created their own alphabet, so no direct accounts of their traditions survived. Today we only have the tales from the folk memory.

The day of the great feast was preceded by the Generous Evening, the equivalent of today’s Christmas Eve. During the Generous Evening, children received small gifts called szczodry. Most often it was honey cakes baked in the shapes of animals or people, as well as nuts or apples. Another important thing of the day was lighting bonfires in cementaries and even feasting there, to demonstrate concern for the souls of deceased ancestors.

 

Traditions and rituals

During the Generous Gody people thanked the old gods for their protection and asked for suport for the future. The most important of gods of the day was Veles. He was considered the god of good magic, wealth and animals. In many regions Veles was a protective and benevoled being, but not everywhere. In some places he was an equivalent of the eastern Chernobog.

Traditions associated with the Bountiful Christmas were also accompanied by other gods, but also demons. One of them was Siema, sometimes called Rgieł. This demon lived among the humans, and it was to him, that the hay placed under the tablecloth during the super was consercrated.

 

Carol singing – koliada

The holiday’s important part was caroling, known in the East as koliada. During koliada villagesr dressed as animalls and strolled from hut to hut, singing songs. An important figure then was Turoń, a horned monster with snapping jaw. When the carolers arrived at the house and the mischievous Turoń began to be an issue to the host, the household members sang to him:

Go home, Turoń, don’t bother anyone

You didn’t grow up here

You won’t spend the night here

Then the host gave the carolers small gifts and they left fot the next cottage.

 

Another custom was leaving an empty bowl on the table during feast for the deceased ancestors. It was a symbol of rememberance and the sadness of their loss. After the feast, the bowl was usually filled with food and placed outside the fence to appease the forgotten spirits. In some regions, tables were set up in cementaries and the super was eaten there with the deceased, as a symbol of rememberance and securing their favor.

In some regions, people were placing the first harvested sheaf of rye, called diduch, in a corner of the main room. Often it was decorated with dried flowers, friut, mashrooms or nuts. After the holiday, diduch was stored with great reverence until spring, when its ears were harvested to Begin the spring sowing.

In Podhale, Kraków and Silesia (Poland), fir, spruce or pine branches were decorated with fruit, dried flowers and trinkets – it was called podłaźniczka. The podłaźniczka was hung from the ceiling or above a window. In some regions it was replaced by mistletoe.

 

The grand feast was the beggining of a whole cycle of holiday rituals. Twelve dishes were placed on the table, symbolizing the twelve months of the year. The tradition said that everyone had to try all of the dishes, because only this would ensure the happiness in the coming year. Before the feast, people shared bread, a symbol of thanksgiving to the gods for previous harvest, from which the bread was made.

Between the meals, Slavic ancestors entertained themselves with fortune telling. There were many ways to discover the future, but the most traditional one involved using hay spread under the tablecloth. Some asked questions, others pulled out one straw and, based on its quality and conditio, tried to find the answer.

Slavic diet during the Great Feast on Bountiful Day was based on meat, vegetables, fruit and all kinds of argicultural produce. Unfortunatelly we don’t know what exactly was served during the feast, but it is well known that Christianity changed Slavic menu from meat to all kinds of fish.

The Slavic traditions and Christianity

As we can easily see, most of the old Slavic traditions were adopted by Christianity and combined into single religious holiday – Christmas. Some customed were almost entirely assimilated without any changes, while others were modified to fit the new worship of a single god.

The Church almost completely suppressed rituals related to the culture of Nature. Those that could not be eliminated (because they were too deeply ingrained in popular consciousness) were renamed and given new meanings. For example, Easter was previously a celebration of spring and the rebirth of nature.

The birth of the sun god’s son, Swarożyc, was replaced with the birth of Jesus. The sharing of bread was replaced with the wafer, symbolizing the body of Christ. The Great Feast was replaced by the Christmas Eve dinner with its twelve dishes. The extra bowl on the table was also adopted but Christianity, but instead of the place for deceased souls it is placed for unexpected guest.

 

 

It’s important to remember that the changes in the Slavic beliefs, traditions and rituals were violently imposed with cross, fire and sword. Ancient joyful holidays, full of pleasure and hope were replaced by fear of punishment and the vision of eternal suffering even afted death.

 

 

Thank you all for reading this. If you have anything to say, please leave a comment below.

Hugs,

Natalia