Winter holidays and Christmas traditions in Romania: the Bear dance, the Masked carolers and the Goat

Romania is a rich country when it comes to traditions and superstitions. Modern Romanians only keep a few of them, but many of the old traditions can be discovered in the countryside, in remote areas of the country. Romania-Insider.com presents some of the winter traditions and customs in Romania that you are likely to witness during December, if you spend your holidays in the country. If you learned of a custom and you'd like to share, drop us an e-mail at editor@romania-insider.com. The Lenten is a period of religious preparations for the great feast of Christmas. Religious people don't eat meat, nor other animal products during this period before Christmas. It is not the only Lent period during the year. Religious Romanians usually keep the Lenten tradition during Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, while longer periods of Lent are set before more important Orthodox holidays during the year. Before the beginning of the 20th century, in the Lenten period, women were proudly showing off their mastery in hand - craft art. Nowadays, the Lenten period is no longer celebrated as it used to be. Other traditions have also been forgotten, while some have taken a different shape. The legendary visit of the three Magi – traditionally the Epiphania- has an echo in our days in the tradition of gifts giving. Romanians share gifts usually on Christmas Eve. Santa Claus – a more modern tradition - exists in Romania, although during the communist period Santa was replaced with the Frost Man (Mos Gerila). In Romania children go caroling on Christmas Eve. Actually, in Bucharest and in other cities they start long before that, as they try to go to as many houses as possible. If you live in a block of flats, chances are you'll be visited by carolers as early as the beginning of December. Not only children go caroling. Groups of students – usually theology students, with beautiful voices- start caroling sometime in the second half of December. Carolers usually expect small food and beverage goodies- fruits, nuts, cookies, glasses of wine for adult carolers- in exchange for their performances. Nowadays kids usually settle for money, 5 or 10 RON should be enough. Traditionally, carolers have bells, whips and drums and make noise to dispel the malevolent spirits. Some of them also wear costumes and masks symbolizing diverse animals such as: bears, goats and horses, which representing the evil forces. From Christmas until Epiphany, they also visit the houses in the neighborhood singing the Carol of The Star and other religious carols, holding a stick with a Star made of cardboard or other materials on top of it. In the first day of the New Year they walk again from house to house chanting a song about luck, throwing rice in the doorways of their receivers. In the countryside, the caroling tradition comes in different forms. There is the simple caroling, which involves only people singing, and there are special carols, which include dancing and more complex performances. The latter are usually to be found in villages, but you might see some street performances in cities as well. There is the Christmas carol which involves carolers dressed as bears. In the past, a real bear was also included in the dance. The tradition, called Ursul (the Bear Dance), is mostly kept in Bucovina and Moldova on New Year's Eve. The tradition aims to purify and fertilize the soil for the next year. The bear cult is of Geto-Dacian origins; back then, the bear was a sacred animal.