The martenitsa must be worn until the person sees the first sign of spring. “Take the martenitsa, and give me health” She tied a red and white thread to a swallow’s leg and sent it to her husband, who was away, as a wish for health and welfare. The legend says that the first martenitsa was made by Ahinora, the wife of the state’s founder Khan Asparuh. Another legend says it is associated with the founding of the Bulgarian state in 681 AD. According to an old legend, Thracians in the Bulgarian lands tied martenitsa. It is also believed that women in ancient Athens decorated the city’s sculptures with similar threads. In Ancient Rome, March was named after the god of fertility and agriculture, Mars. In ancient cultures of South-Eastern Europe, Spring was the beginning of the new year and also the agrarian year. In the past, villagers tied a silver coin to children’s hands with a white and red wool cord to protect them from disease. Senior Bulgarians believed that an evil force awakens in nature during spring in folk beliefs, March 1 marks the beginning of spring. Besides, it is in UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and there is a Guinness World Record of the largest martenitsa in the world: made in Bulgaria and 16,704 metres long. Keeping in mind the popularity of the custom, a vast number of people in Bulgaria wear them. This couple is an integral part of each martenitsa stall, which cheer up the streets starting every mid -February. On the other hand, Penda is female, red and symbolises health and fertility.
Pizho is male and made from white yarn and typifies strength and purity. They are made from red and white yarn and are usually pinned on a garment. Likewise, there is another kind of martenitsa - two small dolls called Pizho and Penda. Also, it describes Mother Nature white is the melting snow, and red symbolises the sunset. Red represents the birth of life, and white is cleansing and novelty it represents the cycle of life and the balance of good and bad times.
It is a twisted thread of wool, one red and one white, whose main purpose is protection and good luck. On that day, people gift each other with an adornment, a brooch but mostly a bracelet. On March 1, people greet each other with “Happy Baba Marta’s Day!” and wear red and white bracelets called martenitsa. The name of the Bulgarian mythical figure is one of the almost 1,400 Bulgarian geographical names in the icy continent. However, her moody persona did not stop her from having an ice-free beach called Baba Marta Beach in Antarctica.
That is why the weather in March is uncertain-sometimes sunny and warm, sometimes frosty and snowy.Īnother folktale says that she is a nice old lady who wants to dispatch her grumpy brothers, January and February. The general idea is that she is an errant senior woman who sometimes gets angry and sometimes cheerful.
This early rough lesson aside, the local folklore says that Baba Marta is the only sister of 11 brothers-months. That discovery led to the inevitable question, which was also the hardest: Is Grannie Marta real? That unbearable thought was also the first hit on childhood innocence. I also remember that the red and white dress that Marta wore was remarkably similar to auntie Maria’s, one of my nursery teachers. When I was five years old, I was excited by the prospect of the appearance of Grannie Marta in our kindergarten. Better known as Baba Marta, the latter is a Bulgarian folklore image of March and symbolises the end of the cold days of winter and the advent of spring. While children in the Western world face the cruel reality by discovering the hidden “truth” about Santa, kids in the Balkans deal with a similar issue: the Grannie March.
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