Wreath. Fun, tradition, philosophy?
Probably, there is not a single girl in the world who has never weaved wreaths in her life. Fingers in sticky dandelion juice and yellow suns on my head. Remember? I remember.
Meanwhile, in ancient times, wreaths were not woven for fun, and the best, most worthy people were honored with this simple dress.
They write that our very word "wreath" comes from the Old Church Slavonic vѣno (veno) "gift". Maybe. Venom was really called the ransom that the groom gave for the bride.
The wreath itself, as you know, is a ring woven from herbs, branches, flowers, which is worn on the head and is a traditional decoration not only for the Slavic, but also for many other peoples. And this decoration has a very ancient history.
Wreaths existed in ancient Greece, where they were awarded to winners of various competitions, heroes, warriors, rulers, in Rome, in China, in India.
They decorated themselves and their loved ones with wreaths. They were hung over the doors and at the entrance to ward off evil spirits or the unkind thoughts of an evil person, put them under the first sheaf of a new crop from rodents, put them under a pillow for a woman in labor to prevent the evil eye and help in future childbirth, fumigated with a burning wreath created from special herbs, sick ... They looked through them, threaded objects, climbed through. They were put on pets.
The herbs and flowers in the wreath were used to judge the location, mood, condition, position of the girl. For example, a mint wreath in Poland meant girlish purity, and a wreath of pea shoots with full pods meant a girl's unwillingness to marry someone she didn't love. A wreath of laurel leaves in Rome was considered a sign of military glory and imperial power, and of oak leaves it was awarded to soldiers who showed special courage in battle or saved their comrade. The Romans had a reputation for myrtle wreaths to relieve intoxication, therefore, feasts were often held in such wreaths. But the crown of thorns was intended for those condemned to death. An orange blossom wreath was presented to an Arab bride as a symbol of fertility. The Chinese presented the olive wreath to poets and writers.
The wreaths carried a great symbolic meaning, each flower individually and the number of flowers in general had a meaning in them. Even the weaving of a wreath itself was a whole ritual with many traditions. Usually girls did it. Everything was important - a certain time of weaving, the number of wreaths, sizes, shapes, different types of weaving and composition. Wreaths were woven for holidays, seeing off, funerals, upon reaching a certain age, even in case of illness.
Well, the wreath acquired a special, and, perhaps, its main significance as a girl's and wedding headdress. Wedding wreaths were sometimes kept for a long time or even a lifetime. They were kept in chests, placed behind icons, where they, safely drying out, stood for many years, sewn into a pillow for the young, and laid them under the cradle of a newborn. Perhaps it was the very ancient tradition of decorating with wreaths at weddings, the exchange of wreaths between the bride and the groom, that served as the prototype for wedding rings. It is even believed that the wreaths could serve as a prototype for royal crowns and crowns, which, again, were crowned for the kingdom of rulers.
Later, wreaths of living leaves, twigs and flowers were replaced with artificial flowers that could last longer.
And it is in this form that they, even having partially lost their purely ritual significance, still firmly entered the national costumes of many peoples.
Wreaths of flowers, both natural and artificial, adorn the heads of many nations to this day as official traditional attire. Familiar to everyone Ukrainian wreaths with ribbons (where each ribbon has its own meaning and place among other ribbons in the wreath, which any self-respecting girl should know), Polish, Slovak, Hungarian traditional wreaths and whole flower crowns, roses on monist headdresses of Bulgarians, yes even the famous Hawaiian wreaths on local girls, at least from the movies.
In general, wreaths of herbs, flowers and other plants are so firmly entrenched in, or rather on human heads, that they are not going to get off them at all, despite the current abundance of all kinds of hats, hats and other hats.
And that's great. It is happiness that in our hectic age, the soul is still drawn to nature, to gentle meadow grasses, and hands remember from childhood or genetic memory how it is to weave a wreath.
Best regards, Yulia Gapunik
@yugdolls
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