What is Mărțișor? (muhr-tsu-i-shore)
Spring brings new beginnings and holidays that celebrate them. Mărțișor is no different. Mărțișor is the Romanian holiday that celebrates the arrival of spring. It is centered around new beginnings, joy, and dates revival of nature. When translated, Mărțișor literally means “little March”. Mărțișor isn’t only celebrated in Romania, but also in Moldova and similar traditions and celebrations can be found in Albania, Bulgaria and even Italy.
How is Mărțișor celebrated?
Mărțișor is typically celebrated by gifting loved ones a small red and white string. The string has the same name as the holiday, Mărțișor. Typically the string is only given to female friends to show love and respect, but really, it can be given to anyone. The red and white are used to symbolize many things. Red can symbolize; winter, hardships, and in some cases death. The white symbolizes spring, warmth, regeneration, and new beginnings. They are intertwined together, representing life. It is also supposed to protect against evil. In some cases, you tie the string to a blossoming tree and it is said that the more the string blossoms the luckier the owner will be.
Food:
There isn’t a specific special food that people eat for Mărțișor. When we asked 8th grader Erin Ignat, a student at H-B who celebrates mărțișor about what food they typically eat for this holiday, they told us that there wasn’t any food typically associated with Mărțișor. “But we do eat these little sausages called mici (me-ch) and ciorbă de perișoare (chi-or-bah de peri-sh-war-eh) (sour meatball soup). The meatballs are my favorite part.”
What is the origin of Mărțișor?
Like most holidays, origin is hard to pinpoint, and Mărțișor is no different. Mărțișor isn’t strictly a Romanian holiday and throughout the centuries it has been molded by other cultures and traditions. It has roots dating back 8,000 years to Ancient Rome. As time went by and things began to change, the holiday changed as well, adapting to modern culture. When asked about how the holiday has changed over time Erin told us that “people used to wear their Mărțișor as a necklace, but now it’s just a little bracelet.”
Like most holidays, there’s usually a good legend attached to it. In the case of Mărțișor, it is the legend of Baba Dochia. Baba Dochia, (The Old Dochia) is a very prominent figure in Romanian folklore along with other Eastern European countries. Baba Dochia has been described in some legends as the beautiful daughter of Decebal, the king of the Daciansis. But as time went on, she became old and irritable.
One thing that really irritated her was when her one and only son, Dragobete, fell in love and married without her permission. Baba Dochia despised her new daughter-in-law and she did all she could to make her life miserable. One horrible winter day during a blizzard, Baba Dochia gave her daughter in law a wad of black wool and told her to go wash it in the river until it became white and clean. She told her that if she didn’t do this task she wouldn’t be allowed to come back and live with Dragobete. The young girl went to the river and washed the wool, soon realizing that it was an impossible task. The only thing that kept her going was her love for Dragobete, she couldn’t bear the thought of being without him. She washed the wool until her hands bled, but still, it only blackened. Suddenly, out of nowhere a mysterious man appeared. In some versions he is a man named Mărțișor, in others he’s Jesus.
The man gave the girl a small red flower and told her that “if she put it into the water the wool would become white”. The girl did just that, and magically the black wool turned as white as snow. The girl overjoyed, ran all the way back home to show Baba Dochia the wool. When Baba Dochia saw the wool she wasn’t pleased, but then she noticed the red flower pinned to the girl’s blouse. Thinking it was spring, Baba Dochia gathered up her sheep and left for the mountains in her twelve, in some cases nine, coats. Along the way, the weather got warmer and warmer. Baba Dochia began to take off her coats one by one as she trudged up the mountains. As soon as Baba Dochia had dropped her last coat, the temperature dropped and it began to snow. Baba Dochia and her flock froze on top of the mountain. The nine coats of Baba Dochia are said to represent the first nine days of march, it is said that Baba Dochia haunts those nine days bringing cold weather and storms. According to tradition, you are supposed to pick one of the first nine days, if the day you choose is pleasant and warm, it is said that you will age beautifully and stay young, but if the day you choose turns out to be cold and stormy than you will become bitter and mean, turning into Baba Dochia.
But of course it’s all just folklore, and the only “proof” there is that Baba Dochia ever existed is an oddly shaped rock formation on top of Ceahlau in the Carpathian Mountains, the same place Baba Dochia supposedly ventured off to.
There are many different variations of this legend however they all share the same basic structure, in one version it’s not her daughter in law, but instead her stepdaughter.
