Today is St Andrew’s Day in Slovakia and it is not an ordinary day.
November 30 is one of the first so-called witching days, a series of days that mark milestones of Advent.
Advent is the darkest time of year when we experience the longest nights. The folk in Slovakia believed that this darkness strengthened the unpalatable forces that brought illness, death and misfortune into their lives. And so it was necessary to protect oneself.
St Andrew's is the second special day of the season. On this day, a clearly defined set of customs was carried out to ward off the forces of darkness.
Aside from protection rituals, our ancestors also engaged in fortune-telling. It gave them a comforting sense of actively co-creating their destiny which was important especially during the most difficult season of year.
On St Andrew's, people melted lead and poured the hot metal through a keyhole into cold water. When it cooled, the metal was fished out and inspected closely. The shape was said to represent the future.
Girls organized their own sessions. They too poured led or hot wax but with the purpose of predicting who their husband would be.
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