The legend of Marzishor

In the Ancient Roman calendar, the 1st of March was the first day of the year and the Romans were celebrating "Matronalia", a holiday dedicated to Mars, the god of nature's forces of spring and agriculture.

Baba Dochia is an ancient agrarian goddess who dies every 1st of March and revives 8 days later, in the day of "Mucenici". Dochia reminds of the great goddess Terra Mater and can be associated to Diana and Juno of the Roman culture and to Hera and Artemis of the Greek culture.

The significance of "Martzishor" has remained the same in time: it's a symbol of spring and rebirth. It's a holyday which brings optimism and belief. Only the ways of expressing the "Martzishor" from a material point of view has changed in time. At the beginning it was represented by a silver coin. Lately, it appeared as a string of white and red pebbles. Nowadays the string is replaced by nicely colored beads, by ceramics or by natural flowers.

Here are the legends of Martzishor

One day, the Sun was descending in a village to take part in a folk-round, disguised in a young man. A dragon watched and kidnapped him. He locked the Sun up and because of that people were sad. Birds weren't singing anymore, rivers weren't flowing any longer, children lost their laugh. Nobody dared fight the dragon. But one day, a young brave warrior decided to take his chances and save the Sun. Many mortals lead the hero and gave him some of their powers in order to help him defeat the dragon and set free the Sun. His voyage was three seasons long: he traveled during summer, autumn and winter. He found the dragon's castle and they started the fight. They have fought for days till the dragon was defeated. Tired and wounded, the brave warrior set the Sun free. The Sun rose up in the sky, making people happy again. Nature revived but the brave man didn't manage till the spring. From his wounds, drops of hot blood began to fall in the snow. While the snow was melting, spring announcers, the snowdrops, were sprouting.

The last drop of blood fell in the pure snow and the brave warrior died. Since then, young people twist two tassels: one of them white and the other one red. They offer them to young girls they love or to those who are close to their hearts. Red color symbolizes the love for all that is beautiful, recalling the color of the brave warrior's blood, while the white color symbolizes health and the purity of the snowdrop, the first flower in the spring.

Another legend tells that, going with her sheep in the forest and spinning the wool of her distaff, Baba Dochia found a coin which she pierced it and passed a thread through that hole. It was the 1st of March and since then, the custom has spread. But it's only later, that people began to use the word "Martzishor".

Another legend shows Baba Dochia starting to climb the mountains, together with her son, Dragobete. Because it kept raining for 9 days and 9 nights, Dochia started to get rid of her sheepskin coats that become very heavy because of the rain. Tradition says that the first days of March have a very changeable weather, because of Baba Dochia, who shakes out her coats of rain and snow. Dochia was quarreling both with the sheepheards who prevent her that the weather wasn't fine enough for her to go to the mountains, and with Mars, to whom she addresses bad words. Angry at her, Mars borrows from his younger brother, February, a few bad days so he could freeze Baba Dochia.

With the first spring day we enter a period that we call <<the nine days of the old ladies>>.

Women choose one of these days, before that period begins and believe that the way the chosen day is, so will their luck be.

Martzishor

Martzishor from Moldova