According to the folk calendar - Bathing suit

May 20 (May 7, old style) according to the folk calendar, Bathing Day is celebrated The holiday is so named for the ritual of bathing horses in rivers People believed that the water at Bath was endowed with miraculous properties, so the owners drove their horses to the reservoirs and led them into knee-deep water Horses could also be doused with water collected in a bucket, believing that this would give them strength and endurance Residents also used the healing properties of water In the morning, water was collected from the rivers into a tub and placed in an open area so that it warmed up and gained solar energy At lunchtime they washed themselves and the children with water The children were allowed to play with heated water and dousing This ritual gave residents strength in their work and improved their health for the whole year Sometimes the day was called Kupavnitsa, in honor of a short plant with yellow flowers People called it differently: kupavnitsa, bathing suit, frying or spring bells The plant began to bloom by this day, and moist soils or reservoirs were considered the best places for its habitat The men continued to sow the fields on Bathing Day If there was a new moon, the sowing was postponed to more prosperous dates, otherwise the crops could be eaten by worms The same applied to the winds - the north and south winds did not bode well for good yields, but the east or west, on the contrary, contributed to it However, their seeds were considered not entirely suitable for sowing On this day, there was a tradition of stealing some grains from neighbors, because they believed that the neighbor’s seeds would give a better harvest To do this, women went to visit and secretly brought out a bunch of seeds Usually they didn’t hold a grudge against such theft, since it was done everywhere If rainy weather happened on Kupalnitsa, then September was expected to be fine The reddish moon predicted rain the next day, but its horns pointing down meant the arrival of warming A crimson sunset was observed for the upcoming windy day The abundance of bees on the acacia tree in the morning foreshadowed an approaching thunderstorm