A March amulet for the whole crew

[Elena]

I am offering each of you a March amulet, according to the tradition in my country, to bring you good luck, happiness, love, good health and everything else you wish.

And I guess this board itself needs a March amulet together with my love…

HAPPY SPRINGTIME TO YOU ALL!

Valentine's Day has not been celebrated in Romania until imported together with Halloween and other aspects of UK/US culture, but we have a local traditional equivalent of St. Valentine's Day, almost forgotten except some country regions. Called Dragobete (a kind of local Cupid elf), it was traditionally celebrated by the 24th of February by young people.

Individuals at country would gather to pick snowdrops (first flower of Spring) if the weather was not too rainy. A feast would occur in one of their homes, complete with dancing and merriment. This was considered to be the time when single people would "pair up". The young people were convinced that they had to be happy and joking all day else love would elude them all year long. If a girl did not meet a boy that day, it was told that no one would love her all year long.

But the first day of spring is the one waited with delight by all women and girls! Every year the festive day of March 1 brings back to us renewed hopes, confidence, faith in good fortune and a prosperous life. It is life, spring and the shining sun which win the battle against chilly weather, overcast skies and the nasty days of the "Old women" (the first 9 days in March). This triumph of rebirth and regeneration could not be better embodied but in the Martisor (March amulet) offered to loved ones in early spring.

As in all traditional cultures, based on a dualist mentality, March was the time when the old and the new, the good and the evil confronted. For young people, it meant ritual games, gift-giving, and the well-known March amulets. These "tokens" of an old culture survived. We can find them in jewelry shops, sold by street vendors, everywhere, a sign of love, appreciation, respect, everybody is happy to receive.

In ancient times it was a silver or gold coin suspended on a white-and-red braided thread with a silk tassel. Red symbolizes love and white symbolizes purity. This tradition is also considered to welcome in Spring time - by uniting Winter (red) and Summer (white). Parents customarily tied around their children's wrist, young men offered to young women, and young women used to exchange among themselves was believed to bring good luck, good health, "like pure silver, like the river stone, like the seashell".

The March amulet is offered early morning on the first day of March; it used to be worn for 9-12 days, sometimes until the first tree would bloom when it was hung on a flowering branch to bring good luck to its bearer. The recipient used to wear it around his neck until he would see a blooming rose and the present was then placed on its branch; in this way Spring was poetically welcomed.

This custom began as a magical gift meant for protection against evil spirits of the winter-ending. Even doors of homes and stables were knotted with white-red thread for protection! Now, family members, friends and sweethearts exchange symbolic pins - any jewelry or (more often) trinket, generally with symbols of spring (flowers, leafs, birds, ladybugs), good luck (four-leaf clover, horseshoe, chimney-sweeper), love (a couple kissing, a heart, etc.). Recipients wear the pins beginning March 1st for one to two weeks. If a person wears many March Amulets it shows they are held in very high esteem by friends and family. In this regard, the charms are also a status symbol.

- a chimney sweep like I have

In most places of Romania only females can receive amulets. (But I sent also to males abroad, when corresponding with them, to know how it is, and some liked them very much!)

In Moldavia (both the one still part of Romania and the Republic of Moldavia), all persons can receive a little March amulet - and mainly boys. In Bulgaria also everybody can receive a March amulet, but they have only the threads, without any trinkets.

Edited March 1, 2011 by Elena