Czechoslovakia is born!

Altarpiece from Hyrov, after 1430; National Gallery of Medieval Art, St Agnes Convent, (Prague, Czech Republic)

October 28, 1918 — The Republic of Czechoslovakia was founded, assembled from three provinces (Bohemia, Moravia, and Slovakia) which had been part of the former Austro-Hungarian empire.

Bohemia had been a duchy in the Middle Ages and then a kingdom in the eleventh century. “Good King Wenceslaus” of the popular Christmas carol was actually the Duke of Bohemia in the tenth century. Most people no longer remember that Prague–the capital of Bohemia–was the cultural and political capital of Europe for several hundred years, beginning in the 1340s. Art was so important to Czech culture that painters were exempt from military duty!

Bohemian culture always valued individualism and following one’s particular calling or conscience; hence, the association of “Bohemian” with the counter-culture of the mid-20th century in New York City and the United States.

The prophetess Libuse selected the site of the city in the AD 700s and married a local farmer to begin the Czech royal family.

Walpurgis Night is still one of the most popular of Czech holidays. According to the traditional Czech stories, the night of April 30-May 1 was magical. Not only was evil believed to be more powerful at this time, but also those who felt brave enough to go outside could find treasures if they carried with them items such as wood fern flower, wafer or sanctified chalk. It was also believed that during the night witches were flying and gathering for the Sabbath. To protect themselves, villagers burnt bonfires on hills and set fire to brooms, which were then thrown into the air to reveal any flying witch. These celebrations are nowadays accompanied with music and traditional food and mark the opening of the tourist season.

Click here to discover more about mysterious, beautiful, magical Prague!

“In the Forest, Deep and Dark….”

It’s increasingly rare to find a forest that hasn’t been shaped by human use. Ohikulkija/CC BY-SA 3.0

When I was small, there was a tremendous forest across the field from my great-grandmother’s house on San Juan Island. I called it the Black Forest, after the famous fairy-tale forest in Germany. It was everything I ever imagined a fairy tale forest would be and never went more than a few feet into the trees. I was terrified of becoming lost and wandering in the woods. I was certain that either Baba Yaga or the gingerbread-house witch would find us if we ever wandered too far under the great trees.

Forests are big, dark, and mysterious. They appear in many–if not most–fairy tales. Forests hide Big Bad Wolves. Witches hide their gingerbread houses in forests. Castles that belong to mysterious strangers are surrounded by forests. Sometimes the forest is itself enchanted. Forests are always dangerous and places of adventure that mark the edges of this world and the worlds of spirit and imagination.

Facts, folklore, superstitions, myths, and anecdotes about trees and forests have always fascinated us. A wonderful book came out recently, Forests in Folklore and Mythology, that makes these tales available all in one place and examines the threads or traits they have in common. Customs, temples and sacred groves; mythical forest creatures such as witches, fairies, demons, wood spirits, and wood nymphs are all in its pages.

Certain kinds of trees are associated with wisdom, life, or death. Celtic mythology tells us that birch trees are important in both the winter and summer to purify the world. Birches were celebrated during the festival of Samhain (what is now Hallowe’en)–bundles of birch twigs were used to drive out the spirits of the old year. Later this would evolve into the ‘beating the bounds’ ceremonies in local parishes, a festival in the springtime. Gardeners still use the birch brooms to ‘purify’ their gardens.

According to Atlas Obscura, the last of the great fairy tale forests can be found in Finland, or on the Carpathian or Balkan mountain ranges that slice across Romania and Bulgaria.

“May Day 2018!”

Queen Guinevere, as the May Queen, leads the May Day celebrations in Camelot.

Queen Guinevere, as the May Queen, leads the May Day celebrations in Camelot.

Considered the first day of the summer season in traditional European societies, the first day of May has been celebrated in many ways over many centuries. May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night. May Day falls half a year from November 1 (Samhain, Hallowe’en, and All Saints’ Day) and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

The earliest May Day celebrations appeared in pre-Christian times, with the festival of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, and the Walpurgis Night celebrations of the Germanic countries. It is also associated with the Gaelic Beltane. Many pagan celebrations were abandoned or Christianized during the process of conversion in Europe. A more secular version of May Day continues to be observed in Europe and America. In this form, May Day may be best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May. Fading in popularity since the late 20th century is the giving of “May baskets”, small baskets of sweets and/or flowers, usually left anonymously on neighbors’ doorsteps. (I remember making May Baskets in school and field day Maypoles on the playground.)

The day was a traditional summer holiday in many pre-Christian European pagan cultures. While February 1 was the first day of Spring, May 1 was the first day of summer; hence, the summer solstice on June 25 (now June 21) was Midsummer.

In Oxford, it is traditional for May Morning revellers to gather below the Great Tower of Magdalen College at 6:00 a.m. to listen to the college choir sing traditional madrigals as a conclusion to the previous night’s celebrations.

On May Day, the Romanians celebrate the arminden (or armindeni), the beginning of summer, symbolically tied with the protection of crops and farm animals. The name comes from Slavonic Jeremiinŭ dĭnĭ, meaning the prophet Jeremiah’s feast day, but the celebration rites and habits of this day are apotropaic and pagan, possibly originating in the cult of the god Pan.

The day is also called ziua pelinului (mugwort day) or ziua bețivilor (drunkards’ day) and it is celebrated to insure good wine in autumn and, for people and farm animals alike, good health and protection from the elements of nature (storms, hail, illness, pests). People would have parties outdoors with fiddlers and it was customary to eat roast lamb, as well as new mutton cheese and drink mugwort-flavoured wine to refresh the blood and get protection from diseases. On the way back from the parties, the men wear lilac or mugwort flowers on their hats.

Other May Day practices in many places include people washing their faces with the morning dew (for good health) and adorning the gates for good luck and abundance with green branches or with birch saplings (for the houses with maiden girls). The entries to the animals’ shelters are also adorned with green branches. All branches are left in place until the wheat harvest when they are used in the fire which will bake the first bread from the new wheat.