Almost every August day found its place in the people's signs, since the signs of August of the month determined the state of nature, and hence the problems of the peasants, for the rest of the year.
Weather and household "tips" August
By signs, the people have learned to determine what will be the autumn and winter of the current year:
- opened August, the day of Macrida, according to which they saw dry or rainy autumn;
- in Ilyin on August 2 , it was possible to understand whether autumn would be satisfying or hungry, for filling the sheaves with grain: hard-packed or "rare", and they celebrated the first sheaf. Ilya was baked bread from the grain of a new crop. People's signs about the weather for August claimed that from this day began cold morning performances;
- On August 5 Trofim-insomniac was celebrated, while the feast was labor: works were actively conducted in the fields, gardens and orchards, and the harvesting of berries and mushrooms continued;
- harvested birch brooms and cleaned bird cherries started on August 6, Boris and Gleb;
- The first week of August is completed by Anna-kholodnitsa. The signs of the weather for August helped to understand what the coming winter would be: if it was cold in the morning and the day was warm, dry and sunny, then the winter was expected to be early and severe. The rain on this day foreshadowed a mild snowy winter.
The next week was also full of signs that helped the peasant; especially paid attention to the 11th of August - the Kalinin day. He was associated with the day of September 5 the same weather.
August was marked by three holidays of the Savior: honey, apple and walnut, which determined the yield, and, therefore, fed the life until the very spring. All the gifts of nature and the fruits of human labors were consecrated in the church, gaining healing powers, and the state of nature confirmed or refuted previous observations concerning the future autumn and winter.
By day August 23 (Lavrenty) also determined the weather conditions in the fall: a windless day foreshadowed that the whole autumn would be quiet and winter would be non-lethal.
Ended the August horse festival - a horse, when the decay began, and the cold matinees became permanent - autumn came into its own.
Today, in a complex ecological environment, people's signs sometimes seem naive and somehow fabulous, but they are the result of centuries of experience of the people, who firmly linked their lives to the earth.