Legend has it
that on this day Saint Todor puts on nine fur coats, mounts a horse
and goes to plead before God to let summer in.
Saint
Todor’s Day is celebrated in different ways across Bulgaria. Let us
tell you about a ritual performed on this day in Western Bulgaria.
Young brides, who married only last winter, have to be up with the
lark on Todor’s Day. They are to hurry and bake a ritual bread, then
start for a church or a temple in the vicinity of the village. The
young housewives are to arrange the breads and perform a special
ceremony: with a long white scarf bound across her forehead, every
young woman has to bow three times in front of her mother-in-law.
This is supposed to put an end to the period of reverential silence
that the lass has to keep sometimes for months to show veneration and
respect. This ritual ends up with a chain dance and singing in which
brides and mothers-in-law join hands.
In Eastern
Bulgaria, Saint Todor’s Day is one of the three days during the Long
Lent when young maids go outdoors, around meadows near the village to
sing, play, run, chase about and sing songs summoning the spring to
set in.
In the past,
during Todor’s week, unmarried girls and bachelors would take a day
outside the village, making swings, dancing and singing songs to pick
at lazy maids and lads.
Todor’s Day is also known as Horse
Easter. Let us tell you why. On this day, young bachelors are to take
their horses out to a green meadow. Then the Horse races start.
Distinguished Bulgarian ethnographer of the 19th century Dimitar Marinov
once wrote: “The fastest horse, all decked in wreathes, paced ahead,
amidst drums and whistles. Everyone would gather at the hub of the
village where lasses and lads start a grandiose Horo dance encircling
the horses and the riders. The horse-race winner would then reach his
home and, there, a maid or his young bride would welcome him with a
white pot of water or wine.
The Name Day
of everyone named Todor, Todorka, Teodor, Teodora, Theo, Dora,
Bozhidar, Bozhidara. “Theodoros” is of Greek origin and means ‘God’s
gift’.
Ritual table: rite
bread, lentils, mushroom soup.
The first Saturday of the Easter
Lent, the East Orthodox calendar celebrates Todorovden (Saint
Theodore’s Day) – the feast is also popular by the names of
“Tudoritsa” or “Horse Easter”. As the tradition requires, early in the
morning on Todorovden, the young unmarried ladies and the newlywed
ones used to knead and bake bread-rolls, then take them to the church
and hand them to their neighbours and relatives for horses’ health's
sake. At noon horse racings were organized, and the riders were all
boys or young men. A kerchief was tied around the neck of the
winner-horse. After the racings, the girls used to expect the first
rain to come and then they used to wash their hair using the rainwater
gathered in the horseshoe footmarks - so that their hair would grow
long and flexible as the horse's mane.
Horse races are organized on Todorovden – a custom in
which the whole village
participates.
The men clean their horses, adorn their reins with colourful beads,
then put their new shirts on and take the horses out for the race. The
winner in the race is awarded – the horse receives new reins and its
owner a new shirt or towel. Then the rider mounts his horse again and
visits all houses in the village to greet the hosts for the holiday.
He is received with joy and his horse is offered water.
Before sunrise the women make rite bread in the shape of a
horse or a horseshoe and decorate them with walnuts, garlic and salt.
Every housewife visits her neighbours and gives them from the bread
she has baked and while she does so she hops runs and imitates the
movements and whinnying of the horses. Her ambition is to be first.
Pieces from the rite bread are mixed with the food of the horses. The
most interesting element of the holiday is the so-called kushia or
horse racing. On Todor’s Day are performed different rites connected
with the young brides in their first year of marriage. In western
Bulgaria, the just married young women go to church on Friday evening,
wearing their wedding dresses. Their mothers-in-law who carry bowls
full of boiled corn and ring-shaped cakes usually accompany them. The
brides wait outside the church and the mothers-in-law enter inside,
where the priest blesses the items they bring. On their way out they
“kick” the brides. The blessed corn is spread over the gardens for
rich harvest.
Another interesting rite practice for health and fertility is
implemented in some parts of Bulgaria – in the morning of the holiday
the young brides bake small loafs of bread in the shape of horse's
hooves. Festively dressed they
visit the houses of their neighbours, friends and relatives, give them
bread and bless their children for health. In the end the brides go to
their parents’ houses accompanied by their husbands and
parents-in-law. A festive table is laid.
Very early on Todor’s Day the mothers bathe their
children so that they are healthy. Before the horse race all women
wash their hair with water mixed with straw from the horses’ mangers.
They throw the already used water in the street, behind the horses so
that their hair is long and strong as the horse’s mane.
Toudoritza or Horse Easter is a holiday for the health of horses
and young brides, newly wed during the winter. On this day the women
bake ritual buns in the shape of a horse or a horseshoe. With pieces
of them they feed the horses and the young brides for health and
fertility. In some villages, when the mother-in-law gives the piece of
bun, the young bride kicks and neighs so that the young horses that
will be born healthy and agile.
The culmination of the holiday is the horse race, “koushia”. At its
end, the horseman who comes first in the competition leads the horo
dance in the village square. They all go to the house of the winner,
where the feast and the festivities go on. Those with this name day
also receive guests and the table is loaded, but with meatless dishes.
Spectacular Horse
Races mark
the Bulgarian Holiday Todorovden.
On Todorovden or Horse Easter, the best looking horse stands great
chances of wining the
hearts
of the audience. Bulgarians, all over the country mark Saturday, the
holiday, known as Todorovden (the day of Todor or Theodor), which is
also called the Horse Easter. The Orthodox Church celebrates the day
the first Saturday of the Easter Fast.
The legend tells on this day Saint Todor Tirone, dressed in nine
furs, who went to God to beg him for the summer to come. Because of
this image, the holiday has turned into the day of the horse breeder
and horse races.
At sunrise women bake and give ritual loaves, named "horse"
or "hoof", because the
dough
is shaped like a horse or a hoof. The bread is given to neighbours and
relatives to keep their horses healthy and strong during the year.
Women compete to give the bread away the fastest possible, imitating
horse movements.
Horse races are held all over Bulgaria in honour
of the Saint. Men dress in new shirts, clean and decorate their horses
before taking them to the race.
The fastest and best looking horse is decorated with
wreaths and is the first one to head to the village, where a lass or a
newly-wed woman meets the winner. A celebration takes place at the
house of the horse owner. The festive meal includes round loafs of
bread, mushroom soup, lentils.
Men named Bozhidar, Nayden, Todor, Theodor and women
named Bogdana, Todorka, and Theodora celebrate their name day on Horse
Easter.
The holiday is a mixture of Orthodox religious beliefs
and pagan rituals. Nevertheless it is always thrilling to watch the
horse races during the day outside the city.
PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
