Inviting spring

There are special kind of bird shaped buns baked by Eastern Slavs as part of the "inviting spring" rituals which were traditionally performed in March every year.  They are called "жаворонки, zhavoronki" (larks) or "кулики/kuliki" (sandpipers) ...

These cookies were baked in March for the first (1st of March), second (9th of March) and third (March 22 or 25th) calling (inviting) of spring...I guess one can get pretty impatient waiting for spring to arrive...🙂

People believed that larks and sandpipers arrived “carrying spring on their wings” and “leading other migratory birds behind them”. And the arrival of migratory birds was a sure sign of coming spring. And an extremely important event in Slavic tradition...I talked about this in my post "Leto"...

Remember, Slavs believed that every autumn, migratory birds took away the sun to Iriy, Slavic Otherworld, World of the Dead, where he spent winter. And that every spring, migratory birds brought the sun back into our world...

But Slavs also believed that migratory birds also brought souls from Iriy. Souls which were ready to be reborn...I talked about this in my post "Nav"...

Here is how you can make two main types of bird buns, the flying one and the sitting one...

Anyway, once made, the "larks" and "sandpipers" buns were placed on the windowsill, but most were given to children who ran around with them pretending that the birds were flying, all along shouting and calling spring to come...

Some children stuck their "bird" bun on long rods and waved them high in the air pretending that the birds were flying. Some other children threw the "bird" buns in the air trying to make them “fly” as high as possible. Some carried the "bird" buns on their heads...

The kids tried to bring their "bird" buns to "the high places": tops of hills, trees, rooftops, haystacks, fences...Children played with their "larks" all day and ate them in the evening, but some bird buns were left on the high places as offerings...

In some areas the kids would eat the bodies of their bird buns, but the heads were fed to the cattle "before they were taken out to graze in the fields for the first time"...This again seems to have been a ritual offering, a sacrifice of sorts "for good weather"...

Some bird buns were left on a patch where all snow melted. And some were thrown into a river...Remember snow melt is another sure sign of the departing winter (Morana/Marzana, the Old Hag Earth) and arriving spring (Vesna, the Young Maiden Earth)...

Which is why Slavs burn the effigies of winter or drown them or both...To be sure to be sure...But also heating of the earth causes snow to melt and the rivers to swell with the snowmelt...I talked about this in my posts "Gryla", "Baba's day"...

Apart from children, young unmarried women also played a major role in "calling of spring" rituals. They were the ones who sang "Веснянки / Vesnyanki" (Spring songs)...

Like this one. And do you see how the end of bread (flour) is linked with the departure of winter and the arrival of spring?

That's interesting...Because it explains the "magical transformation of an old woman into a young maiden through milling" images from Slovenia...

I talked about this in my post "Grandmother's mill"

And in my post "Old woman of the mill dust" about a very similar folk tradition from Ireland...

Here is another Vesnyanka (Spring song). This one directly linked with grain agriculture too...

I don't get this Red Spring thing though...Was this once Весна Красивая (beautiful spring)??? Or is red = hot?

Anyway, in some areas, women baked rye bread and then went out of the village, to the fields, orchards, meadows... There they bowed to earth, threw the bread on the ground and exclaimed: "Here is, Mother Spring, some rye bread for you"...

Again, this is a ritual sacrifice of bread to the mother of bread...And it is performed by a woman...In Slavic tradition (and not just Slavic) Earth fertility and female fertility was directly linked...I talked about this in my post "Walking sheafs of wheat", "Wheat wreath", "Corn dolly"...

This pre Christian Slavic celebration of the end of winter and the beginning of spring was later incorporated into Christianity and is now seen as part of "Сороки / Soroki" (Forty Martyrs of Sebaste)  for some weird reason... 

Here you can find the recipe and the instructional video for these beautiful bird buns (with English subtitle)... 

More about spring and birds in Slavic folklore can be found in these posts: "Partridge",  "Tetjorki", "Swallows", "Bird wedding", "Leto", "Radegast", "Cock bashing"...