Śmigus-dyngus
Śmigus-dyngus (also lany poniedziałek ) is a Polish Easter custom . It takes place every year on Easter Monday . In Poland there is still a lot of Easter tradition stemming from Slavic mythology . There are similar customs in Ukraine , Hungary , Slovakia and the Czech Republic .
All over the country, old and young people sprinkle themselves with water on “Lany poniedziałek”, the “poured Monday”. It often happens that instead of a few splashes of water, young people pour buckets of water onto other people, preferably girls and women.
origin
According to Catholic tradition, the custom goes back to the year 966, when the Polish ruler Mieszko I was baptized and thus converted Poland to Catholic Christianity. Other sources refer to the custom as a purification ritual of pagan origin. The Polish publicist and philosopher Karol Libelt (1807–1875) and the ethnographer Zygmunt Gloger (1845–1910) noticed a similarity in the “Dyngus” with the German “Dünnguss”.
See also
Web links
- Polish Easter Customs - How Poles Celebrate Easter. Poland Magazine, February 6, 2010
- Water battle as a courtship ritual. Spiegel Online , April 13, 2009