Preda in Bulgaria (21/05)

The Predoy holiday is typical for southern Bulgaria (Mountains Rhodope and Pirin). It has managed to survive since pagan times, although it is usually timed to coincide with the feast of Saints Constantine and Helen. That is why it is celebrated by both Christians and pomaks (Bulgarians who converted to Islam during the Turkish yoke). There is an assumption that this is an ancient Thracian holiday, but there is also a version that the holiday was brought with them by the Slavs who came to the Balkans in the 5th-6th centuries.

In many ways, today's holiday is similar to Gergjovden (St. George's Day), since in the center of the cult there are — sheep and milk. The emphasis, however, is now somewhat shifted — on this day there is a real milk yield competition.

The holiday usually begins at a cheese factory or at sheepfolds remote from villages, where shepherds went with their herds in early May. Already in the morning, ritual milk yield begins there. Usually each owner does this difficult work himself, skipping the most thoroughbred white sheep first. This first increased milk yield of the year, as a rule, gives the first correct idea of the general condition of the herd.

The owner measures milk milk with a special shaft with marks (rabs), and the jury determines the winner (usually the one with the most sheep). At the same time, rituals are carried out along the sheep amulet —; geranium, garlic and nettles are tied to the bucket with red thread, and the milk itself is strained through a silver ring. In some places it is strained through dried snake jaws, and the herd itself is previously passed under a living snake. Some milk milk is poured onto the ground for the harvest, and the right to drink first is granted to the oldest shepherd. During milk production, prayers are read and the herd is blessed.

After the competition, most of the milk produced is donated to orphans and widows. There, in a clearing near a sheepfold or cheese factory, they also organize a general meal, where dairy products — feta cheese are always present (as a rule, they cut it with a wooden knife made of pear or apple wood), banitsa (layer cake with feta cheese), and the most efficient ones are already making a fire for frying lamb slaughtered the day before on a spit (the sacrificial lamb is not chosen from the youngest lambs to increase the harvest this time).

The oldest woman or wife of a kehai (the one with the most sheep and who had the highest milk yield) blesses food at the beginning and shares the ritual breads of those present. In some places, fortune-telling is also carried out about the harvest using a lamb shoulder. At the end, according to the old custom, they sing songs and dance in chorus.

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