Dragobete, February 24th

While I have taken a short break from writing my blog and missed Valentines Day it seems appropriate that I would start back up with another holiday that celebrates love, not only that but also one that I think many of the people who may read this blog would not know about thus maybe even more appropriate then Valentines Day would have been.

In Romania what is sometimes considered the first day of spring is known as Dragobete's Day and happens on the 24th of February.  This is an ancient holiday and comes from a mythological figure similar to Eros or Cupid.  Dragobete watches over love and helps to insure that it lasts.  Known as the day when birds marry and nest the thought was this extended to people as well.  As with many holidays that have been celebrated for many years there are numerous traditions and superstitions that are associated with it and vary depending upon region.  Most of these traditions revolve around love in some way.  Play engagements would be arranged, snow collected and turned into water for a love potion to be used the rest of the year by girls, no work was to be done, things like this.

One tradition I read about was, assuming the weather was nice children would go off singing into the woods and at noon the girls would start to run back to town.  The boy that liked a particular girl would chase her and assuming he could catch up with her (probably with her "not" being fast enough to get away) they would have a long kiss.  This would indicate they would be a couple for at least a year.

In the evening there is dancing and revelry for this is a time to celebrate love in all forms.

Links:
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragobete

Others:
http://www.rounite.com/2008/02/24/dragobete/
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/romanian-traditions-dragobetes-day.html

Comments

[Romalien]

Hi,

Nice article. I recently wrote one myself if you want to exchange links.

[Romalien]

I havn't heard the bit about running off into the woods before .