BY MARTINA JURIČKOVÁ

Historically, Slovakia has been a mostly agricultural country. As late as the 1980s, the sustenance of a majority of Slovak families consisted of what they were able to grow in their own small fields and gardens and of the products from animals they kept, instead of buying food in supermarkets (which were very rare back then, anyway). Even though by the end of the twentieth century, with the growing urbanization the number of solely-farming-dependent households was decreasing, there were still many people who, despite having daily jobs, attended to their fields and animals in their after-job hours and over the weekends. Surely, a strong influential factor behind this kind of lifestyle was the cultural inheritance from people’s ancestral generations, which was slow to lose its effect in spite of the changing economic situation, as at the beginning of the century nearly the whole Slovak population lived off farming, animal keeping, and handcraft trading.

So, family life, especially in the rural areas, has been organized around field-work. A lot of proverbs show that as soon as the snows melted and it was warm enough that the ground defrosted in February, it was time to get out to the fields and prepare them for the upcoming sowing. And it was only when it again got too cold to be working outside for prolonged periods of time that people retreated to their houses and attended whatever needed to be done inside and was neglected for the whole summer and autumn, while field-work was prioritized. This was usually in late November. Then, before the real harsh winter hit, the men in the farmer households finally had time to repair their working tools or craft new ones, spread manure across the fields, or cut some wood in the forests and bring in enough fuel for the stoves during the winter. And once that was done, they used their spare time to craft cooking tools for the women, such as spoons, spatulas, bowls, weave wicker baskets and brooms, or mend the machinery women worked with, like spinning wheels and looms.

Wool Spinning and Feather Plucking

Women used the long winter evenings for wool spinning and feather plucking, which were typically occasions of social gathering.

Geese and ducks were one of the domestic animals kept for food by almost every family. During the year, every time such a bird was killed to serve as a feast meal, the women plucked and collected their feathers in sacks because these were to be used as pillow, duvet, and even winter coat filling. But before they could be used for this purpose, the feathers had to be cleaned and the barbs plucked off the quills in order to remain fluffy. Since a household accumulated a lot of feathers during the year and in order to have the work done quicker, the lady of the house usually invited her female relatives, friends and neighbours to help her with the task. These gatherings, besides serving this dutiful purpose, were thus also occasions of story-telling, singing, or mere gossip-sharing, accompanied by a number of traditions and superstitions that originated in the time of pre-Christian old Slavic religions. As a result, feather plucking could be done every day of the week except Saturday because it was believed that doing it on Saturday would breed a lot of flies in the house. The seating of women was also important. Maidens ripe enough for marriage could not be seated with their backs towards the entrance because that would mean they turn their backs to marriage. On the practical side, it was expected that each woman coming into the house would bring with her a log or two, so that the heating of the room would not be solely up to the lady of the house. On the other hand, she was expected to provide sustenance and drinks as the evening wore off. Typically, these feather plucking sessions started after sunset, which in winter was quite early, at about 4 PM, and could last until 11 PM. Later shifts were rare, as the farming families used to wake up often as early as 5 or 6 AM the next day to attend to their animals. So the evening snack and drinks were usually served at around the half-time of the work. This was usually triggered by one of the helpers’ teasing the lady of the house by saying: “In some houses, they already started serving.” The lady then hosts her helpers first with a shot of home-made alcoholic brew to warm everyone up, followed by a tea and a plate full of pies or cakes. When the day’s work is done, everybody goes home just to meet again the next day in someone else’s house for the same task.

Besides feather plucking, another help-your-neighbour social-gathering activity was wool spinning. The wool that men cut off the sheep during the year had to be cleaned, brushed and spun into threads, which again was a women’s job. And to have it done quicker, the lady of the house again called her friends to help her. The day when superstitious women abstained from spinning was Thursday, which was reserved for the lady of the house’s individual work, such as sewing, knitting, needlework, and such.

When story-telling, singing and gossiping was not enough to keep the workers entertained and women, especially the young maidens, started longing for men’s company, they attempted to lure them in by “magic.” This meant that one of the maidens had to venture to a house where men were gathered in the meantime. But not to appear desperate, instead of going in and directly inviting the men, she had to bite into the window sill three times and grab a handful of dirt from the front of the entrance door, run back to the women’s gathering place and throw the dirt on the floor there. In other regions, women lit a linen thread on fire and whispered: “Saint Peter and Saint George, bring the young lads to our room.” Or some similar incantations. This shows that the pagan and Christian practices were often mixed together indiscriminately.

However, when the men came singing and playing musical instruments, such as fiddles, pipes, harmonicas or accordions, it usually meant ceasing women’s work and the rest of the night was dedicated to singing and dancing together. The youth, though, had to finish their merrymaking at 10 PM, which was the usual curfew for them.

The Witching Days

The early setting darkness during winter was very unsettling for our ancestors who believed that the dark provides opportunity for evil spirits to enter this world and harass innocent people. They believed that the evil spirits are most active during so-called “withing days,” which began on 25 November, the memory day of Saint Catherine, and lasted until winter solstice or Christmas. Particularly magical were the nights on 30 November (Saint Andrew), 4, 6 and 13 December (Saint Barbara, Nicolaus, and Lucia). On these days women were forbidden to attend to any of their household chores, mainly feather plucking, wool spinning, sewing, and needlework. It was believed that the first female who entered one’s house and was not in family relation to any of the house’s inhabitants was a witch. On the other hand, if the house was entered by a man in a coat, it foreshadowed a disease in the house.

Saint Catherine’s Day

This was the first of witching days and marked the beginning of winter. For shepherds, this day marked the end of the pasture season and the beginning of wool cutting season. It was also a day when people in service, such as shepherds’ helpers, apprentices or housemaids got their yearly payment and could end their service contract or sign a new one.

On this day, shepherds used to crack their whips and sound trumpets to drive the witches from the village and other people ate a lot of garlic and drew the sign of cross over their houses’ doors to protect themselves from the power of evil spirits. As the saint of the day is Catherine of Alexandria who, according to a legend, was tortured on a wheel, it was forbidden to engage in any activities involving wheels, including wool spinning, cart driving, and milling.

Also, female visits were unwelcome on this day. If the first visitor to a house was a woman on this day, it was particularly bad omen signifying that the inhabitants of the house would be so clumsy the next year that they would often break dishes and be unable to attend to their field-work properly. This misfortune could have been averted if the house was visited by a group of so-called steel boys. It was a group of men who walked up and down the village with a piece of steel saying: “We bring you steel so that your dishes don’t break.” In gratitude for this wish, they usually received a cake, some fruit or even a little money from the people they visited. In some regions, the wishers did not carry steel but used to ceremonially break an old dish at the entrance of the house.

Another young lads’ past-time was pranking. They used to steal tools from their girlfriends’ houses, especially ones belonging to their prospective fathers-in-law, and hide it in an unexpected place. For example, they placed a wheel-cart on the roof of the house or moved the outhouse to a neighbouring yard. Saint Catherine’s Day also marked the last day of merriment before advent, so there was usually a last big ball organized in the village. During this ball, the right of choice of a dancing partner belonged to women until midnight. Then it was the men’s turn to choose dancing partners. The Catherine balls usually lasted until dawn.

In some regions, lads even used to lead parades dressed in female costumes and wear wigs made of linen waste in order to parody Catherines. Often, one of the guys wore a winter coat inside out, so that the furry lining was outside and resembled a bear. Another guy representing a bear hunter led him on a leash. The party was completed by the character of a Gypsy woman, dressed in raggedy clothes and face smudged with ashes, and some musicians. This group then went house to house, danced with the lady of the house and got some food, such as potatoes, eggs, bacon, in reward. If they judged the reward insufficient, they even dared to steal some products secretly. They typically used the eggs and bacon to make dinner and sold the potatoes in order to get money to pay for their musical accompaniment. 

The witching days were not seen as wholly evil, though. Especially young maidens believed that besides evil spirits, this time also enhanced the powers of friendly spirits, mainly such as could help them in love matters. Thus, husband-eager ladies used to perform numerous magic rituals to attract their crushes to them. For example, on Saint Catherine’s Day girls used to spill sawdust from the lad’s house to hers, creating thus an easy road for him to find her. In other regions, girls used to cut branches from fruit trees which bloom the first in spring and put them in a jar of water. Each branch represented one of the girl’s wishes. Then they had to change the water in the jar every day and if any of the branches started growing leaf buds by Christmas Eve, it meant that this wish would come true the next year.

Saint Andrew’s Day

Many of the love magic rituals were tied mainly to the day of Saint Andrew. Maidens used to believe that each person has a pre-fated spouse, so the traditions related to this day were aimed at revealing the identity or at least qualities of this fate-chosen men and the date of their wedding. This was determined by knocking on a pig’s shed. The number of times a girl managed to knock on it before the pig oinked determined the number of years until the wedding. Similarly, they could knock on a hen-house and if the first response came from a rooster, the wedding was to happen within a year. Or girls used to throw a shoe over their shoulders (similar to throwing a wedding bouquet). If the shoe landed with the front of the shoe towards the door, the wedding was soon to happen.

Another way of finding out who in a group of girl friends would get married the first was that each of the girls put a piece of bread on a shovel and all of them showed these shovels to a chosen dog at the same time. Whose bread the dog went after the first, that girl was to get married the soonest. In other regions they used cats and even gunners instead. The girls sat in a circle with the cat in the middle and who the cat looked at first, she was to marry. If they used a gunner, they blindfolded him and whom he pecked first, she was to marry.

To find out the name of the husband, girls used to write the names of eligible lads on pieces of paper and then put these into a dumpling dough, one paper in one dumpling (similar to Chinese cookies) and then boil the dumplings. Raw dumpling dough is heavy, so it sinks to the bottom of the pot, but when it cooks well enough, it floats up. The first dumpling that floated to the water surface determined the name of the husband then. This magic ritual was believed to be more effective when a brand new pot was used, and even more so if flour for the dumplings and wood for the cooking fire was stolen from a house where there lived a man named Andrew. In some villages, girls used a set number of papers, usually 10 to write the names of boys they knew on, one for a guy they did not know yet, one for death, one to remain empty. If the first dumpling to float up was the one with “death” on it, the girl was to die. If it was the empty one, no wedding awaited her in the next year. If a lighter type of dough was used, though, the custom was to put the cooked dumplings under a pot lid and blindly draw one from underneath it with bare hands.

The job or occupation of the future husband was to be foretold from melted lead. A piece of lead was melted over a candle flame in a metal cup with a wooden handle. Once the lead became a liquid, it was carefully poured into another cup full of cold water. When the lead solidified again, its shape was supposed to suggest the husband’s job. For example, if the lead was in the shape of a circle, the husband was supposed to be a wheel-maker. If the shape looked like a gun, he was supposed to be a hunter or a soldier.

In other regions, prophecies about a girl’s fate were made using cups or bowls. The cups were turned upside down, each covering some item, for example, a piece of dirt, a piece of bread, a ring, and so on. One person set these up unknowingly to the girl who wanted her fate to be told and she then chose a cup. If she chose one with the dirt, she was to die within a year; if the one with bread, she was to get rich; if the one with the ring, she was to get married. In bowl foretelling, three bowls but only two items were used: a ring, and a wedding bonnet. If she picked the bowl with the ring, she was to get engaged; if the one with the bonnet, she was to get married, and if the empty bowl, neither was to happen to her. The most gruesome and verging on black magic prophesying technique involved live frogs. A girl had to catch a frog on Saint Andrew’s eve, cover it with honey and bury it in an anthill. The ants ate the flesh overnight and when the girl uncovered the remains the next day, their shape supposedly foretold her future. If she found a hook shaped bone, she would have a lot of suitors. If the bone was flat, she was not attractive for men. If all flesh was eaten, she was to be rich and her produce plentiful. But if there were remains of flesh, these signified diseases and worries. The remains of the frog’s jaw were then sewn into a small bag and worn around the neck to protect her from curses. And if a girl did not want to marry right away, she was supposed to grind the found bones to dust and use this in baking a pie which she was to serve all her potential suitors.

As for men’s traditions, in some villages they on this day used to make parades carrying a male dummy called Dietko (a kiddy), dressed in inside out coats and faces dirty with ashes, scaring the superstitious maidens. Farmers used to shake fences to ensure themselves good produce the next year and shepherds used to bring their wives a bunch of twigs from which she chose one and whipped the man’s legs with it to make him nimble in performing his job. In some regions, the shepherds and cow-herders used to go carolling, usually carrying a big sack and a bunch of wattles. They visited the household of every member of the party, wishing the inhabitants good health. They gave one of the wattles to the lady of the house and in reward they got a loaf of bread, some wheat, bacon, lentils or beans, a shot of home brew. The lady then stored the wattle for her shepherd husband to be used to drive the cattle or sheep to the first pasture next year.

Many other Saint Andrew’s Day superstitions are tied to house and field work. It was forbidden for women to attend to wool spinning, feather plucking, and needlework, and for men to work in the forests. All work around the farm was supposed to end before sunset, otherwise the farmers risked their household being visited by demons and witches in the night. It was also believed that whatever a person dreamt about during Saint Andrew’s night, it would come true.

Saint Barbara’s Day

On this day, girls, mainly the saint’s namesakes, but also others, used to dress in white like Barbara, cover their faces in flour to make them white, and carrying goose feathers they went from house to house to clean them from evil spirits. Upon entering a house, they swept each room’s corners with the geese feathers.

Another tradition was the so-called Barbara’s branch. This was based on a legend that claimed that Saint Barbara had a cherry branch in her prison room which bloomed the day she was executed. Likewise then, marriage-eager maidens used to cut a branch of a cherry tree older than 10 years on the dawn of Saint Barbara’s Day and put it in a water jar in their rooms. If the branch bloomed by Christmas, the girl was supposed to get married the next year. In some regions, to make the magic stronger, the girls were to add fresh water to the jar with their own mouths. How many days before Christmas the branch bloomed determined how many months before the end of the next year the wedding was to take place. The direction towards which the branch turned was the direction the husband was to come from. If a girl had multiple suitors or crushes, she could keep one cherry branch for each of them, hanging pieces of papers with their names on the respective branches. The branch that bloomed first determined the husband’s name. When a branch bloomed, the girl was to take it with her to the Christmas midnight mass and give it to her suitor. If he accepted it, he thus affirmed his love to her.

Barbara’s branches were not reserved for maidens only, though. In some regions, each person in a household was to cut and keep their own cherry branch and whose branch bloomed the first was to have the longest and happiest life.

Saint Nicholas’s Day

This was the least witching and most favourite day, especially among children. It is also the one the tradition from which survived until nowadays and is still observed by practically all of the Slovak population. Based on the legend that Saint Nicholas used to anonymously gift the families of his poor neighbours with either food or money, Slovak parents use to gift their children with a little something in his stead, while the children believe the gifts come from Saint Nicholas himself. On the eve of Saint Nicholas’s Day, children clean their boots and put them on a windowsill where Nicholas can easily access them on his nightly travels around the world and fill them with fruit or sweets, so when the children wake up in the morning, they are pleasantly surprised by the gifts. However, many families nowadays don’t make the children wait until the morning to open the sweet gifts but let them do so just a couple of hours after the children put their boots on the windowsill.

In the past, parents used to fill the boots with home grown products, such as apples or walnuts, and home baked sweets, such as dry cakes or ginger bread. If they managed to save some money, they even bought them a piece of chocolate as the biggest luxury. Nowadays, exotic fruit and candy of all sorts are easily accessible, so children often receive even tangerines, peanuts, candy bars, lollies, chocolates… basically, any sweets and candy that parents know are their children’s favourite, while home-made cakes are becoming rare. One of the most popular Saint Nicholas’s gifts are also advent calendars.

Of course, such a rich bounty presupposed that the children were well-behaved in the past year. If not, if they were naughty, they can be threatened by being gifted raw potatoes, a spatula, or a lump of coal alongside the sweets. The lump of coal symbolizes the punishment of hell for their misbehaviour, the spatula symbolizes the possible spanking from a parent (common in the past), and the potato has a vaguer, probably historical meaning now mostly forgotten. As a matter of fact, potatoes became one of the most common agricultural plants in Slovakia after its import into Europe. Actually, they became one of the few sources of sustenance, along with cabbage and beetroot, cultivable in the harsh agricultural conditions of northern Slovakia, and thanks to their versatility they became a part of practically every dish every day in the poor families. So getting a potato on Saint Nicholas’s Day in such families meant that the child had not been well-behaved enough to deserve anything out of the ordinary.

In many households it is a tradition that a male relative or family friend dressed as Saint Nicholas and visits the children. Traditionally, his costume should be truthful to Saint Nicholas’s, who was a bishop. Thus the man should wear a Mitra and an ornate and bear a pastoral staff. But since the image of Nicholas as a bishop got over the years mixed up with his modern marketing rendering as Santa Claus, nowadays the men often dress in the typical Santa Claus red and white suits with long white beards. Either way, Saint Nicholas is usually accompanied by an angel and a devil. When such a Saint Nicholas visits a child, he asks the child about his or her behaviour and obedience in the past year and to recite a poem. If the child admits to being sometimes naughty, the devil reprimands him or her for this, but with obvious good will and humour. The devil character is very often used for comical effect during these performances. If a child has been good and recites a nice poem, the angel gives him or her a gift. Depending on what arrangement was made between the Nicholas performer and the child’s parents, the gift the angel handed out can be either a part of what the parents would give the child in the boots or all of it. In that case, the child would not put out his or her boots anymore.

In some cases, multiple families within the greater family, friend group or the neighbourhood can arrange the Saint Nicholas visit, so the costumed man then goes from house to house as contracted. Some men even make a part-time business of it, where you can look them up and order a Saint Nicholas visit online or in local newspaper ads. 

Some villages have made this an all-village-children charity event when they organize an evening with Saint Nicholas, inviting all the children with registered settlement in the village. Typically, they send personal invitations to all the eligible children under 15 years of age a couple of weeks before the event, which they have to bring on the day of the event. Then they exchange these invitations for a bag of sweets bought out of the village taxes. Additionally, the children can even recite a poem to Saint Nicholas at the event to get an extra chocolate bar or a lollipop. Similar meetings with Saint Nicholas are also organized by some employers for the children of their employees, while the gifts handed out to the children are paid for either by union fees or deducted from Christmas bonuses. Schools also organize such Saint Nicholas meetings and sometimes even parishes as a part of their children masses or Saint Nicholas’s Day mass. So an average Slovak child can within the week of Saint Nicholas’ day meet with multiple Saint Nicholases and receive a number of sweet packets. On top of that, grandparents on both sides tend to give their grandchildren Saint Nicholas’s sweet packets of their own separately.

Saint Lucia’s Day

This day was considered the most witching one of them as it was believed that most witches are out during this day’s night. To protect themselves from their magic, people used to eat a lot of garlic and feed it to their livestock too. Some even used to draw crosses with garlic on their forehead, chin, and wrists. In some households, they drew crosses with garlic or Epiphany chalk or grease over each door in the house and barns, praying to God for protection. In other regions, it was a custom to make some kind of a sprinkler out of a fir sprig and a wheat ear and every day since Lucia until Christmas they used it to sprinkle holy water around the house.

To protect the livestock, people used to smoke their barns with the smoke made of sacred plants or place a sheaf of straw in the barn’s entrance. If a witch wanted to enter the barn, she would have to count all the pieces of straw in the sheaf before dawn. Elsewhere, people used to hang an onion on the barn door.

It was also believed that on this day only a witch could come asking for milk, so the master of the house never borrowed or sold milk to any woman visiting the house. It was assumed that a witch would use such milk to curse their cattle. In the event that the cows produced little milk on this day, it was assumed they had been cursed, so the owner was trying to find out who the witch who had done so is. If her identity was revealed, she could harm the household no more. So to call her back, the master of the household used to pour milk into a waste place, whip it with willow wattles, or pour it onto a hot iron. It was believed that every harm done to the milk would be, in a voodoo manner, be felt by the witch and when she is finally tortured enough and can’t bear it anymore, she will appear to the person who thus tortured her to stop him or her.

There were many other ways to reveal the identity of a witch. One of them required a person to steal a wooden plank with a missing knot from a coffin in the cemetery. When they looked through the hole from the missing knot at Saint Lucia’s Day midnight, they would see all the witches. A more popular way with the help of the so-called Lucia’s stool. A person should start making this on Saint Lucia’s Day and work on it each day until Christmas. This stool had to be all wooden, no metal nail, slip, staple or brace used in its making. It should also be very simple, usually with only three legs and made out of spruce wood, which was soft enough. Each day the maker could cut into the wood with an axe only once. When the stool was finished on Christmas Eve, the maker took it to and sat on it during the midnight mass, upon which he could see all the witches standing behind the altar or turned to it with their backs. It was believed that the priest was able to see these evil spirits too, but he could not speak of it. The occupation of the witches, or better said, the area they specialized in in regard to the effects of their curses, were indicated by the tools they carried. For example, if she carried a milking jar, it was believed she cursed the cows to lose milk.

To save himself from being spotted and followed by the witches, the stool maker then had to run back home as quickly as possible and perform some of the following protective rituals. He should either throw a mix of poppy seeds, lentils and wheat over his shoulder. It was believed that witches could not pass spilled wheat but they had to pick it up to the last grain. Or he could spill a bunch of needles as the witches had to be squeezed through the eye of each. Once at home, the witches could not harm him anymore, but to make sure, he should draw a circle around himself with the Epiphany chalk. Further, it was believed that if the stool maker did not succeed in escaping the witches, they would torture him by putting a hot coal into his belly button and he could not move until the coal cooled down, otherwise the witches would tear him apart.

The time from Saint Lucia’s Day until Christmas Eve was particularly magical. One proverb says that from Lucia until Christmas, each night has its magical power. During this time, sewing and wool spinning were forbidden. If someone broke this and was not harmed in any way, was believed to enjoy the protection of evil spirits. The second best protection was received by a person who wore a shirt made of wool or linen spun during this period. Some people even believed that witches can bestow their magical skills on them. For example, if you wished to become invisible, you were supposed to put a bone from a cat killed between Lucia’s Day and Christmas Eve in your mouth during the Christmas midnight mass. 

Saint Lucia’s Day was also great for foretelling the future. In some regions, families made a loaf of bread for each member of the family. Then they stuck a feather in each loaf and thus baked them. Whose feather burned in the oven, the person was to die within a year. In other regions, milk was used to foretell if the cattle will breed the next year. After a cow was milked in the morning, a drop of that milk was put in a cup with water. If the milk sunk to the bottom, the cow was already with a calf.

Marriage-eager maidens could foretell their fate using an apple. A girl should eat one bite of the same apple each day from Saint Lucia’s Day until Christmas Eve. If the apple started rotting in the meantime, she was to die before getting married. But if she managed to eat the last bite on Christmas Eve, the first guy she spotted afterwards was to become her husband. In other regions, eggs laid on Saint Lucia’s Day were used. They were stored and then after Christmas midnight mass, they were cracked and the job of the future husband was guessed based on the shape of the yolk. Elsewhere, maidens used to go wash themselves in river water early in the morning of Saint Lucia’s Day. Then they poured some river water into a cup with their right hands and sprinkled it on their house’s door saying specific incantations. If the ritual was done correctly, the girl was to have a lot of suitors the next year. Yet another husband-foretelling custom was similar to one of Saint Andrew’s Day. A girl wrote the names of 12 suitors or crushes on pieces of paper and added one empty piece. Then she put them under her pillow, took out one paper each day until Christmas Eve and destroyed it without reading it. The last paper that remained on Christmas Eve determined who her husband would be. If the last remaining paper had no writing, she was not getting married the next year.

Another Saint Lucia’s tradition was similar to Saint Barbara’s tradition. Girls would dress in white with floured faces or cover their faces with veils to represent Lucias. They used to go in pairs of groups of four from house to house, silent, and used to clean spider webs with brooms or goose feathers and whitewash the walls. In some regions they used to sing and give sweets to small children or bring a doll representing a baby. Upon entering the house, the girl with the doll sat down cradling the baby, while her friends swept the floor, questioning the house owners, whitewashing the walls, and sprinkling holy water. In some regions, Lucia was supposed to check the cleanliness of a house and determine whether the maiden living in it is ready and skilled enough in house-keeping to get married. It is believed that the custom of pre-Christmas cleaning spree originated from this tradition.