Sumedru - tradiţii şi credinţe
Sumedru’s Fire

Summary/Abstract: Sumedru is an important god of the Romanian pantheon, an agrarian divinity and the protector of the shepherds. The beliefs and the customs related to this agrarian divinity, replaced during Christianity by Saint Demetrius (celebrated on October 26th), and are specific to the areas where the animal breeding is the main occupation.Sumedru is associated with the death of the nature, the winter’s and the cold’s arrival. The celebration of Saint Demetrius stored several practices and rituals (of purification, fertilization and of protection) related to the cult of the ancestors (the commemoration of their souls). In Bran area, in the village named Sirnea, the inhabitants start the preparations for Sumedru’s celebration two or even three weeks before. In the evening of October 25th they set a big wood pile on fire and all the inhabitants gather around it and they sing and dance until dawn. Saint Demetrius’ day is the right time to make premonitions about the weather and the next year’s harvest. Sumedru’s fire is a “living” custom, preserved in many areas of Romania, not only in Bran, but also in the northern part of Arges, Dambovita, Valcea and in the mountainous areas of Moldavia, Oltenia and Muntenia, although its initial significances are lost.

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