Ride of the Kings, Vlcnov

I have been meaning to make the journey to South Moravia to see the Ride of the Kings for several years. This year I was determined to go and had even structured a tour to include the Ride. When that tour was cancelled, I decided I would go anyway and took my friend Maggie.

I really didn't have much idea what to expect. I knew the Ride of the Kings was a traditional celebration which had received UNESCO listing. A number of villages in the area have a Ride of the Kings, but the most famous and the only one that happens every year is Vlcnov. I presumed the village would be packed with visitors, much as Cesky Krumlov is for the Festival of the 5-Petalled Rose.
 

What I found was a genuinely local celebration with few tourists. In fact the locals seemed delighted that a Brit and an Australian had come to see their festival. The King is a 10-year old boy, dressed in women's clothing with a paper rose between his teeth, who rides through the village accompanied on either side by two aides in similar attire. In addition there are the riders - young men who recite verses in praise of their King and encouraging by flattery and insult the watchers into donating money. Their horses are decorated with ribbons and over 1000 crepe paper roses.

After the ride there is another procession featuring the women and men of the local villages in traditional folk costumes. Each village has its own costume. In the open-air amphitheatre in the centre of the village we watched local groups perform traditional dances and songs, whilst in one of the houses we met with two ladies who showed us how to make crepe-paper roses and fed us the local cake.

It was a quite extraordinary day and we loved every bit of it. Sadly my camera battery died half way through the day, but that gives me the excuse to go back another year.

Drowning Morana - the End of Winter

I always spend March in England, for a number of reasons including being with my mother on Mothering Sunday. For this reason I have never seen the Czech traditional ceremony that marks the end of winter. But my friend Hannah has and she gave me this photo of the ceremony taking place in a small village a few miles from my home.

Morana was the Slavic goddess of winter and so her ritual destruction towards the end of March every year marks the end of winter and the beginning of spring. The girls of the village create an effigy of Morana out of straw and branches, dress her in old clothes and drape a necklace of eggs around her neck. On the day of the drowning, she is processed through the village to the river, to the accompaniment of songs and music. There she is set on fire and hurled into the river.

It is obvious that this ceremony predates the arrival of Christianity to the Slavic lands and may at one time have involved a human sacrifice. In this country, in which winter can be very harsh and where we do not have the early wildflowers that act as harbingers of spring in England, a sacrifice might well be thought needed to secure the death of winter. Nowadays of course no other reason is needed than the excuse to have a party.

The Mark of Three

Wander around many Czech towns at this time of year and you might notice on lintels and doors the letters K, M and B written in chalk as above. Sometimes the letters come with the year and sometimes you will see several sets of letters dating back several years. You may wonder what these stand for. Perhaps it is a sign that the electricity meter has been read, you think, or some sort of building work. Perhaps it is a sign like those one used to see in English villages - a coded message from a tramp or hobo, gypsy or fellow inhabitant of the road, that this is a house where the inhabitants are generous.

In fact of those options you would be closer to the truth with the last - it is a sign that the inhabitants have been generous. But the visitors were not down-at-heel beggers, but three kings. Twelfth Night in the Czech Republic is known as Three Kings Day, because on that day children (and adults) dress up as the three kings - Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar (in Czech Kašpar, Melichar and Baltazar) and go around the streets asking for donations to charity. When the householder has put their donation in the tin, the "Kings" write the initials K M and B above the door. What do the initials stand for? I have heard different answers - one simply that they are the initials of the kings' names and another that it stands for the words: Christus mansionem benedicat (Christ, bless this house). Of course both answers could be true.

Raising the Maypole

The 31st April is an important day in the Czech calendar. It is the day when they raise the maypole and "burn" witches. This year I was in Cesky Krumlov for the celebrations. Here is a video of the difficult and skillful erection of the maypole.

The event is very much a community one. There are stalls all around the Eggenberg gardens featuring local community groups.

The stage is host to performances by local youngsters, from preschool dancers to a vibrant teenage samba group. The girls of the traditional dance group decorate the maypole (before its erection) with garlands and paper birds.

Paper birds also decorate the trees.

Of course there is the usual beer tent and stalls selling parek (hotdogs). Mothers and children are cooking octopus sausages on hazel sticks over an open fire.

In addition there is a unlit bonfire waiting the witchburning which will take place in the evening. Meanwhile the older witches are happily painting youngsters faces at a stall nearby.

And younger witches wander the grounds looking for their friends or should we say familiars.

Gingerbread workshop & a song

Last summer I took some Australian friends to an old mill near to Cesky Krumlov, where we were given a wonderful workshop in painting traditional Czech Easter eggs and making gingerbread. But the highlight was something I hadn't planned. Here's a video of what happened.

Masopust - Czech Carnival

Here is a video of Masopust (Czech Carnival) in my local town of Horice Na Sumave.  What I love about the Horice version is that it is very much by and for the locals. Masopust will be celebrated in Cesky Krumlov in just over a week's time. I will try and get a video of that too, so you can see the differences between the two.

Of course there is far more to Masopust than what you see here, for more see my previous blogs on the subject, or better still come and experience yourself.

PS Sorry about the spelling mistake at the end of the video - goodness knows how many times I watched the thing and still I didn't see it until it went up on Youtube!

Masopust in Cesky Krumlov

Last Tuesday, being Shrove Tuesday, Cesky Krumlov celebrated Masopust (the Czech carnival). The procession had the traditional Masopust elements that I saw in Horice Na Sumave of the tancmeisitri, the Masopust character, as well as some people in costumes of straw, a master of ceremonies, and some people with fur hats.


What was particularly lovely were the two little masopusters, whose presence suggested that the Masopust tradition has a future.


In addition there were people in masks and costumes from the more Italian Carnivale tradition, including one in a white pierrot costume who also seemed to be part of Masopust.


As happens at the Cowley Road Carnival in Oxford (which I have been involved in over the years) the local schools had been active and there were lots of children dressed in home-made masks and costumes.

Finally there were some strange street theatre elements. This time I was able to take some photos which I share with you here – a better way of giving you the feel of the event rather than through my inadequate words.


For the tale of how Masopust came to England view my post on the subject.

Posts on other Czech customs include Easter

Masopust in Horice Na Sumave

Masopust (the Czech version of Carnival) is celebrated at this time of year in certain parts of Moravia and Southern Bohemia. Fortunately for me it is still going strong here in Horice Na Sumave. It happened on Saturday. Unfortunately it was the worst possible weather for it. Instead of the usual Czech winter of one day of snow followed by bright sunshine, we have had almost continuous snow for days. The roads leading to our village have become slicker and slicker and were particularly bad on Saturday – in fact I watched as the wheels on the tractor pulling the snow plough spun on the ice outside our house. What was I saying in my post of a week or so ago about how the Czechs are not as good at dealing with snow as we Brits are led to believe?

For Masopust a group of Masopusters wander from house to house and village to village. Outside each house a group of tancmeisitri (dance masters) in black suits wearing tall hats covered with tissue flowers (to symbolise Christ's wounds apparently) and carrying fake guns or pikes (often with a piece of bacon and bread on it) dance in a circle. In addition there is the Masopust character – a young man elected for the post – who wears a coat of brightly coloured rag strips and carries a flail for thrashing wheat. Then there are a number of other comic characters – one looked as though he might have been a bear. Having danced and thus blessed the house with prosperity the householder gives them shots of slivovice or some other fiercely alcoholic beverage. I gather that the occasion is also used as a means to raise money, for say the local volunteer fire brigade, and that the householder may be “arrested” until a fine is paid.

On Saturday I looked for their arrival from my window, thinking I would see the procession come along one of the two roads into the village. But I missed them, perhaps because in the terrible weather they came by car. Instead I simply heard some music and there they were dancing outside my neighbours' house (a very short dance it was too). I grabbed my camera, put on my coat and boots and went outside. They were nowhere to be seen. I walked the short distance to the cross and still there was nothing to be seen. However in the few minutes it took me to walk there, I realised why the dance had been so short – the ice was lethal and I nearly lost my footing several times and I hadn't had several shots of slivovice! I abandoned my idea of walking to Horice na Sumave to see the end of Masopust. So I am sorry, but as I do not have any photos, you will have to make do with this one from last year's photos on the town's website.

Carnival is of course linked with the Catholic Church traditions in Southern and Central Europe, but I couldn't help thinking that Masopust comes from a much older tradition, which it betrays in several ways. Firstly the festival is clearly one which brings good fortune and fertility – hence the flail, the bacon and bread and the blessing on the house. Secondly there is the role of Masopust himself. In Horice the final act of Masopust happens in the local hall of culture in the evening. Here everyone gets well and truly ratted and dance into the early hours, but not before Masopust is ceremonially executed and a mock funeral takes place. Here if ever there was one is an example of a legacy of the pagan Celtic sacrifice of a god-king to secure the fertility of the land for the next season.

Which all brings me to my final observation. One thing that strikes me strongly about Masopust is its similarities to British Morris dancing and mumming. The coat of rags is identical to those of the border morris sides as is the habit of blacking up. Of course there is also the fertility ritual element in both. I gather from a recent exhibition at The Museum of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice that an element of Masopust, which took place in the then German-speaking towns of this part of South Bohemia, was a form of sword dancing. The book of the exhibition suggests that this was a peasant imitation of lordly sword dances, but that may be wrong. Sword-dancing (or rather dancing with long pieces of metal) is part of the Morris tradition. These are usually eventually woven into a star or sun configuration and the dance ends with this being held aloft. However I remember very clearly in my childhood seeing another version of this in which the configuration was around one dancer's neck, the swords were then withdrawn and the dancer fell down.

Bringing Masopust to Oxford

In my British life I am a founding member of the Cowley Road Carnival, which has grown into Oxfordshire's largest community event, and am still very much involved. The Cowley Road Carnival is a multi-cultural event, celebrating the diverse communities that call East Oxford home. A year ago I successfully put together a grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund to fund an exploration of the different Carnival traditions to be found among the communities in Oxford. So it could only made sense given the rising numbers of Czechs in Oxford for me to try and get a project going that introduced the Czech version of Carnival into the Cowley Road event.

Of course I am biased, Czecho is my other home. But it is more than that - I am fascinated by both the differences and similarities of my two countries and masopust/carnival is such a good example of it. As you can see from the video - there is so much that is familiar about masopust - the rag costumes are similar to those of some morris sides and mummers' troupes, the straw man who is sacrificed to ensure the arrival of spring, the hobby horse character (horses are always a potent symbol of fertility and wealth among the Celts - the ancestors we Brits share with the Czechs) and others. Of course the tradition of processing around the local houses asking for alcohol donations in return for a song/dance and good luck is common all over the world. But there are touches which are not common - such as the large hats covered with roses symbolising the days of the year and Christ's wounds.

There is an opinion prevalent in Britain that negates our ancient traditions as the laughable indulgence of beer-sodden bearded saddos. But people who make snide comments about morris dancers waving hankies and wearing bells wouldn't dream of mocking traditional Indian dance with its bells etc. With carnival there is an opinion in Britain that believes that only the Caribbean tradition is the true one, never mind that Carnival traditions are so deep rooted here that they predate Christianity. Perhaps by looking at another related country's carnival tradition we can come to see our own with better understanding and maybe even value them.

I will blog again to tell you how I get on with the project. Oh and if anyone out there is interested in providing some sponsorship (the Lottery money only covers 60% of our costs) to help bring some Masopust from the Czech Republic to Oxford, do get in touch with zoe@eastoxford.com

Easter in the Czech Republic

My first visit to the Czech Republic was just before Easter 1990 and I have enjoyed a fair few Czech Easters since. In fact I try to ensure that I am there for Easter, it is such a special time in the Republic.

Many visitors to Czecho return home with a box or two of brightly decorated easter eggs (above) - they make a lovely and light momento of your visit. On my first visit I too brought back some eggs, but I had little idea what their significance was. Nor did I know that of the switches of woven willow wands and decorated with ribbons, which I saw on sale in Wenceslas Square.

Over the years I have learnt more about these Easter traditions, but then a few years ago I was let into some of the secrets. I was invited into a small kitchen on Easter Monday where the lady of the house was preparing the eggs. She was going to show us the local tradition of egg decoration. She had blown several dozen of them - the family was going to be eating a lot of omelettes over the next few days! She needed a lot as the matriarch of a large family and as a brilliant egg decorator her eggs were going to be in great demand.

Now there are different forms of decoration I believe in different parts of the country and different traditions are passed down from mother to daughter, so the traditional decoration I was shown would not be found every where. It involved dyes, beeswax melted on the stove and a pin stuck into the end of a pencil. The process was a sort of batik on egg, with the pin used to apply the wax on the egg in a pattern. Our hostess made it look easy, it wasn't - the wax would stick to the pin or come off in a blob and my attempt looked very primitive when set against hers. Once the wax is set the egg is dyed, the wax is then removed with a warm cloth to reveal the colour beneath. This process can be repeated to create patterns in different colours. The pattern that I was shown was a traditional one of various fertility symbols - the ear of corn, a woman in traditional dress etc.

We had hardly finished dying the eggs, when in through the door burst some male friends of the family carrying the willow switches. They set about playfully belabouring the legs of all the women present with the switches. In return for being "beaten" we gave the men some eggs. Then the matriarch produced some cake and plum brandy, which were consumed by her visitors with gusto. Afterwards they all disappeared in search of other female prey, eggs, cake and alcohol. The tradition is obviously a pagan fertility rite - which is very clear when one discovers that the name for the switch is pomlazka (from pomladit "to make younger") . Of course the tradition has been upbraided by American feminists to Czech bemusement.

Later we sat in the garden and listened to the gaggles of men, now quite drunk after visiting various houses, caroling along the street below. When the doorbell rang we hid, we had no more eggs to give!