Sorcova
By Maria Dumitru
This tradition is a symbol of
fertility, health and purity. "Sorcova" is a bouquet used for New Year's
wishes. Children invoke the divinity of vegetation for the health of the
host in the morning of the first day of the New Year. This bouquet is made
up of one or several fruit-tree twinges as apple-tree, pear-tree, cherry-tree,
or plum tree. Nowadays people use an apple-tree or pear-tree twig decorated
with colored paper and flowers made up of colored paper, too.
Firstly, children wish to
the members of the family or to their neighbors and relatives a happy New
Year while touching them lightly with this bouquet. The children touch
everybody slightly with "sorcova", wishing them to blossom like apple-tree
and pear-tree, to live and grove old like these and to be as strong as
a stone or as iron.
The children get all kinds
of gifts such as cakes, biscuits, candies, oranges, apples or money. At
the end of this day, children put the bouquet near the eastern window in
the house, keeping it for the next year.
The carol "Sorcova"
Sorcova, vesela,
Să trăiti, să-mbătrâniti,
Ca un măr, ca un păr,
Ca un fir de trandafir,
Tare ca piatra,
Iute ca săgeata,
Tare ca fierul,
Iute ca otelul,
La anu' si la multi ani!
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