Brief introduction about the Aegean.
The Aegean region or Aegean Macedonia is a term used for the Greek part of Macedonia which was taken long time ago where it was divided in 1912 and 1913 by the Balkan imperialists(No hard feelings though :) ).
It is located south-east from central Macedonia
However lots of Macedonians still live there..
Enough about geography,I am using this opportunity to retell my grandmother's ways of living in that times. Anyway she is still casting some spells and performs weird rituals, death and vengeance spells, where actual death is happened are her favorite.
Even though this may sound as she is evil old lady, in fact she is kind and wicked at times :).
In the Aegean, Orthodox Christianity was the main religion and practicing witchcraft was strictly forbidden but the region and the villages from that certain area called Kostursko (Skeleton's) were considered as stupid villagers and their weird pagan customs weren't taken for granted.
The village were my granny lived had a interesting and confusing combination of worshiping things such as the nature, the devil ( karakondzulo), the Sun and the spirits of the ancestors.
Wicked...O.o..Yes i know.
They had a certain ritual during dry periods in the summer.
People have been choosing 5-10 young virgins called "dodoli"
to summon the rain.
The girls were naked, dressed only in corn leaves over the "embarrassing parts" of their body.
the villagers were singing songs during the preparations and when all was done and the girls ready.
The girls were making a circle holding hands and dance clockwise till exhaustion singing or chanting:
Lido-Lido Dodoli,
igrame ko samovili,
Dai ni maiko dozddovi,
da naranime dusicki...
Translation:
Lido-Lido Dodoli (its the intro but can not find translation :) some kind of "la-la-la" it is :)
Dancing like the faeries do,
Give us mother rainy days,
so we can feed ours souls...
And when all the girls fall down from exhaustion the ground where they made a circle from dancing is spread with the corn leaves which they were dressed in and it is set on fire.
And after three days or so there was rain too. :)
I was so amazed indeed while listening to my granny telling me this.
Hope you will like it.
And i do not plan to stop posting about the Aegean witchcraft now.
There will be more rituals and spells i like to share with all of you.
Take care all :)
Re: Aegean Witchcraft By: mydruidway
Post # 2 Aug 18, 2010
i loved the story i wish to hear many mant more
Re: Aegean Witchcraft By: AngelaBlack
Post # 3 Aug 18, 2010
Very interesting! Thank you, Mara. I look forward to learning more from you. xx
I am glad you liked it, its so motivating for me to write more :)
As i mentioned before the villagers worshiped many things including the nature or (Maika Priroda) Mother Nature as some of them would say.
My grandmother also told me about their connection mainly with the Walnut Tree.
It is believed that the faeries were dining there and it would be a great sin for a person to spit or do something that will make the area under the tree filthy.
In the other hand you will disturb the peace of the faeries or even worse, mess their lunch and in some cases where people have done something wrong to the faeries they are in some way obliged to do harm to that person.
My grandmother was a witness to a faery attack but not the "victim"
a man was passing by a walnut tree and had spit under it...After a minute or so the man collapsed out of nothing and when he got back on his legs he was deaf. He told that he felt strong wind blow in his ears... The villagers know what cause his deafness but the man refused to believe and refused to get any help from them.
My granny have been telling me lots of things what faeries can do if they got annoyed of disturbed in some way and believe me the man got the less he could get from them...
I actually do believe that there are some energies hanging around the trees and rivers anyway the plants are alive and have an energy or their own...but that there are little people with butterfly wings..O.o NOT!
absolutely interesting and I DON'T think your Grandmother is evil at all, she sounds wonderful. you're blessed to have her.
In my time I've had to dish out a few, (well load of) well deserved curses too. But I am also a kind person and a nurturing mum.
