| Martisorul is the celebration of spring in all regions inhabited by Romanians. Its origins go deep in the pre-Christian history, when the name of celebration was Dochia. |
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The legend says that Dochia, an old, mean woman, persecutes her daughter-in-law by sending her to the forest to
pick wild strawberries at the end of the winter. The girl is guided by an old men and thus she collects the wild
strawberries and brings them to Dochia. This one, seeing the strawberries, believes that the summer has come. So she goes to the mountain with her pack of sheeps (or goats in other variants), but not before dressing up with 9 sheepskin waistcoats, just in case. But on the way it gets so hot that she leaves her waistcoats off, one by one. After 9 days, however, it gets suddenly very cold, and so she gets frozen together with her sheeps (goats). This is the reason that the stone formations in the mountains shaped by the wind are called "the old ladies" (Babele), like those in Bucegi Mountains. |
| The Dochia celebration highlights the structuring of the traditional Romanian year as a series of contrasts: summer - winter, light - darkness, warm - cold, fertility - sterility, life - death. Dochia identifies herself with a moon deity who dies and is reborn at the renewal of time. |
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The small artifact that is given by the men to their wives, mothers, girl-friends, daughters on the 1st of March
has a white and red twisted thread symbolizing the winter and the summer, the cold and the heat. It is worn during
a few days as a brooch attached to the blouse, at the neck or around the wrist and it is meant to bring health and wealth, luck and protection.
Reference: Ion Ghinoiu, Romanian Feasts and Customs |
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