Folklore & Esoterica
Harvest end and the last sheaf
The end of the harvest was marked with a wreath, a last sheaf and a delivery to the household. The sheaf then stood in the corner…
Folklore & Esoterica
The ritual year, the symbols embroidered into cloth and painted onto eggs, the Carpathian practitioners and the philosophers — the older layer beneath modern Ukraine.
Folklore & Esoterica
Green week and the household dressed in leaves
For one week in early summer, houses are decorated with cut branches and the floor is covered with herbs. It is one of the least Christian…
Folklore & Esoterica
Vertep: the travelling puppet nativity
A two-storey wooden box carried from house to house at Christmas, with scripture performed on the upper level and something considerably less reverent on the lower.
Folklore & Esoterica
The Ukrainian wedding as a ritual sequence
A traditional wedding is not a party with customs attached. It is a sequence of defined stages, each with its own songs, roles and objects, running…
Folklore & Esoterica
The molfar: the Carpathian practitioner
Described in popular writing as a wizard, the molfar was in practice a specialist in a mountain community with several overlapping and fairly practical functions.
Folklore & Esoterica
Reading embroidery
Ornament is often described as a written language with a decodable meaning. Some of that is well founded and a good deal of it was invented…
Folklore & Esoterica
Paska and the Easter table
The Easter bread is tall, sweet and difficult, and it is baked in a house where nobody is allowed to slam a door while it is…
Folklore & Esoterica
Butter week and the end of winter
A week of pancakes, visiting and hospitality immediately before the longest fast of the year, which is exactly why it is as excessive as it is.
Folklore & Esoterica
Malanka and the masked new year
On the old new year, whole villages put on masks and go through the streets. It is one of the largest surviving carnival traditions in Europe…
Folklore & Esoterica
The kobzars and the sung epic
A tradition of long narrative songs, performed by blind itinerant musicians who were organised into guilds with their own rules, training and secret language.
Folklore & Esoterica
Ivana Kupala: fire, water and the shortest night
A midsummer festival of fire and water, paired at every point, and part of a complex that runs across the whole of Europe.
Folklore & Esoterica
The pysanka: geometry, wax and meaning
A pysanka is not a painted egg. It is a wax-resist batik executed on a curved surface with no margin for error, carrying an ornamental vocabulary…
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