After taking last week to do a Q&A, this week, Slavic Saturday returns with an early Slavic spring festival that has been brought into modern celebrations on Easter Monday – Śmigus-dyngus (known among Polish-Americans as Dyngus Day or alternately in Poland as Lany Poniedziałek). There are similar holidays throughout the Slavic nations: Oblévačka in the Czech Republic, Поливаний понеділок in Ukraine, and Oblievačka in Slovakia.
(June 2021 Updated) Note: If you enjoy Slavic mythology, check out A Dagger in the Winds, the first book in my Slavic fantasy series called The Frostmarked Chronicles. You can also join my monthly newsletter for updates and free novellas (such as the prequel, The Rider in the Night) set in the world of the series.
Modern Celebration
Today, Śmigus-dyngus is a popular festival that is a part of the Easter season in Poland. Involving people (often randomly) dumping buckets of water over each other, its name is just as silly as the festival itself. This is part of the festival’s other name Lany Poniedziałek, “Wet Monday.” A less common part of the celebrations nowadays is the joking hitting of people’s legs with willows while they’re being drenched.
The festival has become a well-accepted part of Roman Catholic tradition in Poland in modern times, but, as we’ll talk about in the origins section, that wasn’t always the case. It isn’t only a religious holiday, though, and is celebrated by many beyond the Christian celebrations. Because of this, it is recommended you don’t carry around anything you don’t want to get wet during Śmigus-dyngus – even if you’re visiting. No one is safe.
Origins
Like many early Slavic pagan festivals, there is a lack of clarity about Śmigus-dyngus’s roots. We do, though, know quite a bit about the traditions.
Śmigus-dyngus, as its name implies, is actually the combination of two traditions: Śmigus and Dyngus. While the exact timing and purpose of each of these is unclear, the combination of them makes sense. Śmigus was typically the pouring water over people’s heads and hitting them with willow branches, and Dyngus was the opportunity for people to avoid being drenched by giving gifts to others such as eggs and other trinkets. This could also be connected to the pagan egg traditions that were eventually brought into Easter celebrations as well.
The pouring of the water (and joking whipping with willows) was originally done by boys to girls they were fond of. In one way, it was a precursor to marriage for boys and girls (similar to Kupala Night/Noc Kupały) within the tribes. In another, it was said to be a way of washing away the demons of winter, as were the willows whipping them away. There were often processions of people with the water and willows, singing traditional songs as they visited cottages before the feast at the celebration’s end.
There are connections to this procession and celebration as well to the Drowning of Marzanna – the celebration of the spring equinox where the effigy of the winter goddess was paraded through the village and then burned and/or drowned. Straw made up this effigy as well as the costumes some men wore during Śmigus-dyngus. It’s unknown how connected these festivals were before writing (which the early Slavs lacked), but it is regardless fun to see how the traditions relate.
In The Frostmarked Chronicles
Currently, Śmigus-dyngus isn’t in The Frostmarked Chronicles. Some of the elements of it are combined with the Drowning of Marzanna festival at the beginning of A Dagger in the Winds, but story-wise it was too difficult to fit into the fantasy world I’m building – especially considering how close together these two festivals are.
That’s all for this week’s Slavic Saturday. Be sure to keep a lookout for more posts next week, and if you haven’t seen the full series of posts, be sure to check them out.
*As always just a quick disclaimer. Slavic mythology is broad and not written in many if any primary sources, so there’s a variety of interpretations. The interpretations I’m using here are from the sources I’ve found to be reliable.