ANCA CEAUŞESCU, Sărbătoarea Sânzienelor în tradiţia populară din Oltenia (The Gentle Fairies Holiday in the folk tradition from Oltenia)

ANCA CEAUŞESCU
Cercetător ştiinţific III, dr., Institutul de Cercetări Socio-Umane „C. S. Nicolăescu-Plopşor” al Academiei Române, din Craiova;
E-mail: ancaceausescu@yahoo.com

Abstract
The Gentle Fairies Holiday, also called, besides Sânziene, Drăgaica, is one of the significant Romanian holidays, celebrated yearly on the 24th of June. In Oltenia, this holiday is accompanied by different magical-religious practices of future foreseeing, divination customs, or finding the faith and the fortitude of the household. Tightly connected to the privileged moment of the holiday, along with the miraculous wreaths braided especially from the Lady’s bedstraw flowers.
The Gentle Fairies Day is the most important day of the year, from the 27 mentioned in the folk tradition, when there are harvested medicinal herbs. Now is the moment when the calendar time and the vegetation mature themselves, the moment when the healing power of the diverse plants and weeds increases.
A specific custom of this day is Drăgaica, an ancient autochthonous practise, which used to take place, annually, on the 24th of June, and that was still kept in our traditional village until the middle of the 19th century.

Keywords
Sânziene, Drăgaică,Oltenia, the folk tradition, rituals, customs