Walk with a star

In the Russian North, caroling “with a star” was called to christend , to walk with a star , to sing Christmas . The participants of the ceremony (teenage boys or singers of the church choir, accompanied by a clerk, sometimes a priest) wore a model of a "star", which could be called a carol. Before entering the house they asked: “Is it possible, dear host with a hostess, to glorify Christ with your star?”; Having received permission, they entered the house, stood in front of the images, and sang the troparion “Christmas is yours, Christ, our God” and other church chants. In the southern Russian regions, the carol boys wearing the “star” were said to go to praise Christ or to go to Christmas. Along with the usual five-six-pointed “star” made of sieves, the Orthodox Christians carried a hollowed pumpkin on a stick, in which they made cutouts and inserted a burning candle; this pumpkin was called a star (Krasnodar.) ^[3] .

In Siberia, the image in the center of the star of the ship on which Ilya Muromets stood was popular. In this case, they sang a song about how Ilya Muromets and the heroes on the Falcon ship defeated the Turkish enemy force ^[4] .

Especially popular were rounds of "evezdare" in Poland. Usually, 3-5 boys took part in the ritual of chodzenia z gwiazdą , who prepared a mock up of a “star” in advance using the rim of an old sieve: they glued it with colored paper, attached “rays” around it (from 5 to 16 and even up to 24 pointed “horns” , sometimes placed in two tiers), put on a long stick, strengthened the base in the fixed part of the axis, and with a hand rotated the pole with the “star” so that it rotated in different directions. In the Polish Pomerania, wearing a “star” was such a typical rite that in general all the mummers and participants in the sacred walks, even if they went caroling without a “star,” were called gwiazdri, gwiazdory, gwiazdkarzy (cf. Polish gwiazdarz - star, astrologer ^[5] ) There they were quite numerous groups (from 6 to 16 people) of young people, usually mummers.

They spoke about the practice of caroling: chodzić ro gwiazdówce . Those who wore the “star” usually dressed as “ grandfathers ”: they put on an upturned casing, a pointed cap, covered their faces with a mask or smeared with soot, attached a long beard made of linen, their legs were wrapped in straw plaits. They were accompanied by other mummers - “stork”, “goat”, “bear”, “chimney sweep”, etc. In rare cases, women dressed as “stars”, they were called gwiazdkami (that is, “asterisks”) or “piękne złociste panie” (beautiful golden pannas). Kashubi expected a visit to the "star" immediately after the Christmas dinner. When the leader gwiazdki entered the house, the owners asked him: “And where did this star come from, far away?”, To which the person who answered answered: “from heaven” or “from the moon” ^[2] .

In some places, the star went around during Advent . So, in the regions of Warmia and Mazur, from the first advent week, groups of young people went around with a star at home, while the participants dressed as grandfather, woman, goat, stork. Groups of up to 10-12 masks — grandfather, chimney sweep, bear, goat, horse, and others — were made up in Polish Pomerania. The most popular mask among kashubes was the advent pea bear, a mummers wrapped in pea straw. In Slovenia, on Sundays, groups of guys decorated with special Advent wreaths with burning candles fixed on them lined up in a church in front of the altar for the duration of the service. Then these Advent youths walked from house to house, playing carols - greeting orations and fasting songs (see Caroling ). It was believed that the house, in which they did not look, expects misfortune and dysfunction. The owners presented them with specially baked advent bread. The tradition of circumambulating the mummers, representing Lucius , Barbara , Nicholas in the days of these saints, was also stable ^[6] .

In some areas, the Christmas rounds of the mummers with a star, with a “goat”, with a “stork”, etc., began with St. Andrew's Day ( Luzitsa , Varmia, Mazury, Polesie ).

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  Kashubian Star Carvers Christmas , 2009

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  Kalyadovshchiki Mogilev province. Christmas 1903

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  Star with an Icon, Bucharest, 1842

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  Zvezdari in Vienna. Epiphany , Austria, 2008

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  German " Three Kings ". Epiphany , XVII century

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  The Three Wise Men . Epiphany , Denmark, 1862

History

The tradition of Christmas performances came to Finland from Sweden and gradually spread throughout the country. In South-West and Southern Finland, the participants in the performances are called tähtipojat , in Häme - tapanipojat , in Eastern Finland - säärnipojat , and in Northern Finland - tiernapojat . The words säärnä and tierna are distorted variations of the Swedish word stärnä “star”. Tähtipojat and tiernapojat are essentially two historically divergent versions of the same play.

Attitudes towards traditional and church walks were sometimes different. It was believed that the arrival of “church carols” in the house does not provide a profit on the farm and can even do harm. In Slovakia, immediately after visiting the priest, who draws with a chalk the cross sign on the doors, the housewives hastily wiped these signs so that the hens begin to rush in the spring as early as possible. In Polesie, some owners did not allow Christians carol (walking with a Christmas star), believing that where they came, millet would not be freed. On the contrary, the caroling attitude, organized “according to ancient customs,” was the most positive ^[7] .

The coincidence of caroling at the time of the winter solstice, which coincided with the most important date of the Christian calendar of the Nativity of Christ, determined the special significance of the rite in the national calendar. According to Western Slavic historical data, already from the 15th century the church made efforts not only to ban demonic carol rounds, but also to take them under its control, that is, to give caroling a new ideological content. In Czech and Polish church teachings of the XV — XVI centuries. the pagan custom of caroling on Christmas Eve is condemned, when ordinary people go in droves in droves all night and, imitating the voices of animals, shout loudly, introducing themselves and others into sin, and a new church custom is approved: on Christmas Eve and the week before it, people walk in the Czech Republic and Moravia houses caroling priests and church servants with the singing of Latin church songs; often there are calls for believers to distinguish between sinful and obscene caroling (putting on masks, noisy behavior) and pious house visits of clergymen, who were also to be gifted, and not to slam doors in front of them. Polish literature of the sixteenth century condemns the popular tradition of dragging around the streets on Christmas Eve with loud cries, taking a tour , wearing a wolf's skin , and stoning the doors of houses where the owners poorly gifted carols. The persecution of folk customs of the holy carol, called in the church sources the devilish, satanic game, continued until the XIX century ^[8] .

• Epiphany
• Three kings
• Epiphany evening

• Avilin Ts. Astralogiya ў traditsyaynay culture ход convergent Slavs: carotas narys (Belorussian) // Folklore ucachny culture: materyalyaly ІІІ Міжнар. Navuk.-prakt. Kanf., 21-22 kras. 2011, Minsk. At 2 hours. Part 2. - Mn. : Iss. BDU Center , 2011. - S. 42–44 . - ISBN 978-985-476-946-2 . Archived January 1, 2015.
• Advent / L.N. Vinogradova // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 1995. - T. 1: A (August) - G (Goose). - S. 94–96. - ISBN 5-7133-0704-2 .
• Christmas Star / L.N. Vinogradova // Slavic Antiquities : Ethnolinguistic Dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 1999. - T. 2: D (Give) - K (Crumbs). - S. 288-290. - ISBN 5-7133-0982-7 .
• Caroling / Vinogradova L.N. // Kireev - Congo. - M .: Great Russian Encyclopedia, 2009. - P. 588. - ( Great Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 vols.] / Ch. Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004—2017, vol. 14). - ISBN 978-5-85270-345-3 .
• Caroling / L.N. Vinogradova // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 1999. - T. 2: D (Give) - K (Crumbs). - S. 570-575. - ISBN 5-7133-0982-7 .
• Bypass ceremonies / L.N. Vinogradova // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary: in 5 volumes / under the general. ed. N. I. Tolstoy ; Institute of Slavic Studies RAS . - M .: Int. Relations , 2004. - T. 3: K (Circle) - P (Quail). - S. 483-487. - ISBN 5-7133-1207-0 .
• Christoslavia // Calendar rites and ritual poetry of the Voronezh region. Afanasyevsky collection. Materials and research. - Vol. III / Comp. Pukhova T.F., Hristova G.P. - Voronezh: Publishing House of the Voronezh State University, 2005. - P. 163 .
• Myllylä, Rauno : Tähti se kulukeepi: Tiernapoikien tarina. - Helsinki: WSOY, 1992.

• The Glory of Christ (Christ) // REM (ethnomuseum.ru)
• “Christians! Christos! ”, It is distributed here and there (predtecha-gorodische.ru)
• Praise of Christ (mnogodetnaya-semya.ru)
• TÄHTI SE KULUKEEPI - TIERNAPOIKANÄYTTELY (fin.)
• Tiernalaulajien suurkokous (fin.)