Today, in any city in Russia, you can meet a girl whose head is decorated with a wreath. The Ukrainian folk symbol fell in love with fashionistas. Only few people know that this bright decoration is not just a beautiful accessory. A wreath is a whole story about your marital status, mood, feelings.
A few words from history
Ukraine has always been famous for its flowers. They were everywhere: in the open steppes, on the windows of huts, in front gardens and vegetable gardens. The hostess, whose yard did not have a wide variety of bright flowers, was considered lazy and not adapted to family life.
Ukrainians have long believed that flowers help drive away evil spirits, give a person he alth, a sharp mind. Nature could give happiness, but it could also cause serious harm. Each flower had not only its own name, but also its mystical properties. So, the poppy has always been a symbol of sensual love, the immortelle gave he alth, the cornflower meant the beauty of a young girl.
Flowers were embroidered on clothes, they painted walls and dishes.
Weaving a Ukrainian wreath with their own hands, girls and women created a talisman. He could protect them from the evil eye,talk about marital status.
And the wreath helped to hide the hair. The Slavs had an old belief that hair carries the energy of a person. So that the "enemy" (the so-called dark forces) did not deprive a person of strength, hair should be covered.
So the women came up with the wreath. The Ukrainian symbol was always decorated with ribbons, the length of which was equal to the beauty's natural braid.
There was one more property of wreaths, practical. Mint, wormwood, chamomile and other herbs, even when dry, retained a scent that insects (such as lice) were very afraid of.
How to "read the wreath"
Ukrainian folklore is rich in symbols and folk traditions. One of them is weaving a wreath. It was believed that if a girl lost this head ornament, then she lost her virginity. Giving the guy a wreath, the girl confessed her love to him. There is a legend about how a girl met a handsome guy. Fascinated by her beauty, the young man begged to give him a wreath so that he could show it to his parents and get permission to marry. Having fallen in love with a handsome man, the young woman gave him a wreath. Grabbing it, the guy turned into a devil and dragged the girl with him to hell.
A very beautiful custom is associated with this headdress. On the night of Ivan Kupala, the girl wove a Ukrainian wreath with her own hands, and then, taking it off her head, lowered it into the river. If the wreath stuck to the shore, then the beauty was waiting for an ambulance wedding. A wreath floating downstream showed that the groom would be from distant lands. And the drowned jewelry warned of imminent death.
Weaving a wreath was a serious matter, on which Ukrainian women believed their lives depended.
How to weave a wreath
Ukrainian amulet required careful observance of the rules when creating it.
Weaving began with the creation of the foundation. Brown ribbon was woven into it first. This symbol of the land-nurse was important for both unmarried girls and mothers of the family.
The ribbon was woven in the middle and was considered the basis of the wreath, as the earth is considered the basis of life.
Yellow ribbons were placed on both sides of the brown ribbon - a symbol of the sun, happiness, prosperity.
Then everything depended on the needlewoman herself, who created the wreath. Ukrainian folklore endowed each color with its own quality. Therefore, the girls chose the color of the ribbon, focusing on what exactly they wanted to receive, what they wanted to talk about.
- Green ribbons after yellow ones said that the owner of the wreath was young and very beautiful.
- Symbolizing the sky and water blue ribbons attracted he alth and strength.
- Ukrainian wreath was necessarily decorated with an orange ribbon, it was a symbol of bread.
- Purple meant wisdom. It was more common in the wreaths of married women, as well as the poppy flower.
- A white ribbon embroidered with golden sun and moon spoke of the innocence of a young beauty.
How the flowers were picked
Ukrainian head wreath has always had a strictly specified number of flowers. It must be in itherbs intertwined. Each region of Ukraine had its own rules. Today, we have come across a similar list. There must be 12 flowers in a wreath:
- Chamomile as a symbol of tenderness, kindness, purity.
- Cornflower, denoting beauty.
- Hops (especially for adult women), symbolizing the flexibility of the mind and ingenuity.
- Periwinkles, saving the soul from dirt and prolonging earthly life.
- Forget-me-not that spoke of constancy.
- Pionia, mallow and rouge as equivalent symbols of Faith, Hope, Love.
- Married women wove poppies into the wreath, which testified to love and symbolized sadness.
The rest of the inflorescences girls and women could choose at their discretion. Often, mint, yarrow, and other aromatic herbs were woven into the Ukrainian wreath on the head. In addition to mystical symbols, they carried a different load: they replaced perfumes and aphrodisiacs.
Age Wreaths
The very first wreath for a three-year-old girl was woven by her mother. It necessarily included marigolds so that the baby would not have a headache, periwinkles and forget-me-nots that develop vision, soothing chamomile. Every year a new wreath was woven, in which there were more and more herbs and flowers. From the age of 13 until marriage, girls wore a "wreath of love" of viburnum and daisies.
