The Birds’ Wedding

Did you know that there was such a thing as the ‘Birds’ Wedding’ celebration tradition?!

In honor of this tradition may I present my collection of bird stickers: I drew quite some birds last year and had 14 of them printed on stickers. I really like the result – vivid colors! Wonderful 🙂
(They are available in my Etsy shop)

I grew up in the Eastern part of Germany and I remember that we celebrated this event. I couldn’t find any information n English, so here a short overview:

This day is celebrated in some Eastern European cultures, but especially by the ‘Sorben’ in the area called ‘Lausitz’ (that’s also where I grew up, but I do not belong to the ‘Sorben’. They call it ‘Ptaškowa swajźba’ or ‘Ptači kwas’.

The night before January 25 children put a plate out on the windowsill to find it filled with sweets (in the shape of birds and/or birds’ nests) in the morning. As it is believed that the birds are celebrating their wedding and are thanking with their gifts for the food they received from the children during the Winter. I’m sure there are other stories as well, but that’s how i know it.
Also, on the 25th many preschools and kindergarten celebrating with costumes and songs (I remember being a stork one time – I always had long legs ;)).
As I don’t live in that area anymore, I am not sure how much it is celebrated these days through schools but I did find some information on theater programs, so it IS celebrated .
some links with pictures, if you’re interested – but it’s all in German…
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogelhochzeit
http://www.cottbus.de/gaeste/wissenswertes/tradition/vogelhochzeit,40000245.html

So much color must be shared on PPF – so hop on over to see what it’s all about.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Cheers,

Jana

 

Tags: art journal, bird art, sticker, tangledpen, tiny art