Party

Winter Solstice Celebration, by the Latvian painter Evalds Dajevskis, Acrylic, 1989...

The traditional masked characters dancing in the room are all symbols of death and resurrection  of nature...

stork

bear

goat

white horse

death, the dead

bride

sheaf of wheat

Ever wondered why these characters? Well, because they all represent the idea of death and resurrection...

Stork:

Storks are migratory birds, which disappear in the autumn and reappear in the spring...Slavs believed that in autumn, migratory birds followed the sun to Iriy, the land of the dead...And that they came back from Iriy to our world in spring, again following the sun...

In pre-Christian times, Slavs believed that souls of their dead entered birds and through birds entered heaven, Iriy. So feeding birds with grain during  winter was basically a form of feeding the ancestors, sacrificing to the ancestors...

Slavs also believed that migratory birds brought the souls back from Iriy, so they can be (re)born as people...And so the belief that storks brought babies...

I talked about this in my posts "Leto", "Julenek", "Nav", "Bird wedding", "Inviting spring"...

So stork = death - resurrection...

Bear:

Bear goes underground, underworld (to hibernation) in the autumn and comes out from the underground, underworld, in the spring, with cubs...

So Bear = death - resurrection...

I talked about this in my post "Bear dancers", about a winter ritual bear dance from Romania. 

During which:

Bear dances (spring, summer, autumn)

Bear falls cause a demon took over him (winter) 

Bear is killed and bled to let the demon out (hibernation. death-rebirth)

Bear gets up and dances again (spring, summer...) 

Bears also danced during the winter in Russia, during Koliada, Christmas (Winter Solstice processions)...

Goat: 

Ibex goats mate during the winter, with the peak in midwinter, Winter Solstice. The mating season is marked by vicious male goat fights, which from the distance look like a dance...

This is why ibex goat is the symbol of winter throughout its range. Hence Slavic Christmas carol goat mask...

In Slavic lands the carollers performed ritualistic dance which showed the goat dying and then being brought back to life...You can read more about this in my post "Krampus"...

This basically depicts the winter zodiac:

Sagittarius (start of winter), Capricorn (mid winter), Aquarius (end of winter, snowmelt)...

Hunter, (almost) kills the goat, from whose blood spring spring flowers...The meaning of these symbols was preserved in Slovenian legends. You can read about this in my post "Trentar", "Zlatorog"...

So Goat = death - resurrection...

Oh look, goat, bear and stork dancing together in Russia...

Horse:

Horse fertility is governed by the sunlight, meaning horses are most fertile on summer solstice, peak fertile time of the year...Which is why horse is one of the main solar symbols and symbols of summer...I talked about this in my posts "Trojan horse", "Archaic rider", "Hayagriva", "Shamash playing with solar horse", "Goddess on a horse", "Longma"...

A dead horse would then be a good symbol for...Winter and Winter Solstice of course... The day when the sun is reborn...I talked about this in my post "Gray mare"...

So Horse = death - resurrection 

Sheaf of wheat:

In the autumn, grain dies and gets buried (sown)...It then gets resurrected (sprouts) over winter and spring and grows into new grain...

So Grain = death - resurrection

The last sheaf of grain represents the living "sprit of grain"...I talked about this in my posts "Diduch", "Julenek", "Corn dolly"...

Which is why sheafs of grain dance around Europe every winter. I talked about this in my post "Walking sheafs of wheat"...

Winter was in Continental Europe seen as the time of death. The nature died at the beginning of winter, when the sun went to the land of the dead...The nature got resurrected at the end of winter when the sun returned from the land of the dead...

While in the land of the dead, sun had a lot of time to chat with the dead. And, Slavs believed, it was the dead ancestors which were remembered by the living, that "put the good word in for the living" and were the source of the prosperity of their descendants...

I talked about this in my several of my posts: "Diduch", "Lapis manalis", "White feast"...

The dead ancestors also visited their descendants during the winter (the scull guys behind St Nick). St Nick is telling the kids that they should be good Christians...The reason why kids are not looking at St Nick, is cause they are staring at St Nicks gang of the dead ancestors standing behind him, ready to take bad Christians away...Somewhere in Austria...I talked about this in my post "Little Christmas"...

The ancestors expected to be wined and dined by them and shown the good time during winter parties...Or else...In some parts of Serbia, on Christmas Eve people used to take a table laid with food on the doorstep of the house and would invite the dead to the feast in the same way... I talked about this in my post "Wolf feast"...

The people on this picture from Moldova are "Koledari", Slavic masked "Christmas" carollers. The man with the blackened face, representing dead ancestor, holds ritual solar bread called kolač or kovrtanj (wheel). Slavs believed that all good comes from ancestors...

So The Dead = death - resurrection

The Bride:

The Bride is the hag (winter earth) which magically gets transformed into the maiden (spring earth)...

A girl dressed as a faceless "bride", who brings presents (and good luck) to Sorbian families on the last Wednesday before Christmas (originally probably on Winter Solstice day). I wrote about it in my post "Bescherkind"...

In Scotland a special folk dance commemorates the death of "The old woman of the mill dust" and the marriage of her daughter....

"Bablji mlin", meaning "Granny's mill" scene, Slovenia. An old hag is being milled, and thus transformed, into a young maiden. Winter being transformed into Spring...In this depiction of the rebirth scene, the granny is being pushed into a mill by a goat...I talked about this in my post "Bablji mlin"....

At Imbolc, the first day of Spring according to Gaelic calendar, St Bride's "bannock" or "bonnach" was baked and given to the young girls as a blessing. One was also left outside as a gift for St Bride when she passed in the night to bless all the homes...I talked about this in my post "Bannock"...

Here is the "bride" representing St Bride (Brigid), made out of the butter churn on Imbolc, the day that marks the beginning of spring...

Slavs call the day that marks the beginning of spring, "Maslenitsa" (butter festival)...Oh, and on Maslenitsa, they hold a festival that celebrates the death (end) of the old hag (winter earth), and the arrival of the young bride (spring earth). During the festival, people parade the effigies of Marzana (goddess of death and winter) which are dressed in white, like brides (or snow maidens)...

Add to this the Snow-White story, where a young maiden gets killed by her own mother by a poisoned apple, only to get resurrected by a young prince to whom she then gets married...I talked about this in post "Snow-white"...

So The Bride = death - resurrection

Ready for the party?

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...