May 5 - Saturday
Lelnik - Red Hill
Festival of the Meeting of Spring in Turkey
Festival of chimney sweeps in the UK
International Day for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
International Day of the Midwife
Day of the diver in Russia
1921 Birthday of the spirits "Chanel No. 5" - their presentation took place in Paris
The holiday "Lelnik" was usually celebrated on April 22, according to the old style, on the eve of St. George's Day (Egoria Veshnego). These days were also called the "Red Hill", because the place of action was a hill near the village. There they installed a small wooden or turf bench. She was planted the most beautiful girl, who played the role of Lali (Leli).
On the right and left of the girl on the hill, the offerings were laid on the bench. On one side was a loaf of bread, and on the other side was a jug of milk, cheese, butter, egg and sour cream. Around the bench were woven wreaths. The girls drove round the bench and sang ritual songs, in which the deity was glorified as the wet nurse and the giver of the future harvest. In the course of dancing and singing, the girl sitting on the bench wore wreaths on her friends. Sometimes after the holiday on the hill a fire (olelia) was lit, around which also dances and sang songs.
For a modern person, Lely's name is associated with the fairy tale of A.N. Ostrovsky "Snow Maiden", where Lel is presented as a beautiful young man who plays the pipe. In folk songs, Lel is a female character - Lelya, and the main participants dedicated to the holiday were girls.
It is significant that in the rituals dedicated to Leli there was always no funeral motif present in other summer holidays, for example, in the Mermaid Week and the Day of Ivan Kupala.
In spring rituals, various magical actions with eggs were widely used throughout the Slavic world. Throughout the spring there was a coloring of eggs - "pisanok", "krashenok" - and various games with them. The church Easter calendar largely overshadowed the archaic nature of the rituals associated with eggs, but the content of the painting of the Easter eggs leads us to a deep archaic. There are also celestial deer, and pictures of the world, and many ancient symbols of life and fertility. Ethnographic museums store thousands of Easter eggs, which are the most massive legacy of pagan representations.
Eggs, both dyed and white, played an important role in the spring ritual: the first plowing was carried out "with salt, with bread, with a white egg"; an egg was smashed against the head of a horse or a tilling ox; the egg and the cross-biscuit were an obligatory part of the rituals for sowing. Often, the eggs are buried in the ground, catalyzed along a field sown by a resident. Eggs were put under the feet of cattle for pasture on a day of yore and a leper, put in the gate of the stable, so that the cattle crossed them; With the eggs they went around the cattle and gave them to the shepherd.
Similar holidays exist for many peoples of Europe. In Italy, a prima is celebrated - the day of the first greenery, in Greece, since ancient times, the return to the land of Persephone, the daughter of the goddess of fertility of Demeter, is celebrated on this day.