November 8 – Mitrovdan in Serbia

nPosted on November 8, 2019

Key Points

nThere are people in the world who don’t pay much heed to “four seasons,” since they live in places where the sun is pretty much overhead all year long, day and night is always roughly equal, and the weather is never all that cold.

nOf course, these people live in the tropics.

nThere are people who consider the year to be divided into fewer than or more than four seasons. Old-time Serbians counted two seasons: summer and winter. Summer began on the Feast of Saint George, May 6, and winter began on the Feast of Saint Demetrios, November 8. The latter date is called Mitrovdan.

nFor Serbians who lived in the country, rather than in cities, especially before the 20th Century, wintertime was hard. It was so-so-so important to keep one’s livestock alive, but with cold weather, snowstorms, and hungry wolves prowling the long nights, it wasn’t so very easy to do that.

nMitrovdan was therefore not a celebration, but rather a time of observing taboos and rituals in order to (hopefully!) increase the chance of one’s family and one’s livestock surviving another harsh winter. It was also a time to look for omens – would the winter be full of snow? Or mild?

Heavy snow, above.
A much lighter blanket of snow, below.

n
n

nSerbians watched their sheep, not just to keep them safe from wolves, but also to see which way they were facing, their body positions as they lay down, and whether a white sheep or a black sheep (or any sheep!) lay down on the axe.

nAll these superstitions and weather predictions grew out of desperate need to understand and maybe even control life, the universe, and everything, coupled with a big-time lack of knowledge about that stuff. Rather than laugh at “silly superstitions,” we can respect the story-making ability of humans, we can keep alive traditions that we want to continue – while shrugging off the inaccurate motivations for those traditions – and we can be thankful that we who are alive today are very, very lucky – we understand and even control far more about life, the universe, and everything now than when the Mitrovdan traditions were first appearing.