Steemit!
What a good day it is today! Finally, after two days of snowing the day of reckoning has come. So find the loudest possible instrument, dress in the most weird combination of colors and let's bury, burn, nail or in any way chase away Pust. A Slavic personification of winter.
At the end of our journey, we end up in the Styria region of Slovenia, taking up most of the east part of the country. And here we can meet the personification of a Slavic god.
Kurent or Korant is a pagan deity comparable to the Greek god Priapus. He is a god of fertility, wine, good harvest and is a mischievous person.
So every year for a week before ash Wednesday in Ptuj, one of the oldest towns in Slovenia dating back to ancient Rome, when it was called Petovio, people adorn their woolen suits with long colorful ribbons and large cowbells to chase away winter with dance and loudness.
The costume is similar to a dress we encountered in an earlier post. That character was called the Ripped one from Cerkno.
There are two costume iterations of Kurent. Called the feathery one and the horned one their dressed are both comprised of four parts and are called kurentija or korantija. The torso with red socks is made from wool. So is the head, with the addition of a leathery mask and a plum of goose feathers or horns. Hence the names. A Kurent carries a wooden bat on which he collects handkerchiefs of fair maids and wears five cowbells around his belt. The bigger the better.
In Slavic mythology Kurent is a central deity on the story of the great flood, encountered in many cultures.
You can read the first part of the story here:
-https://steemit.com/art/@kroflvs/kurent-a-slavic-folk-lore-a-comic
To read more about the Ripped one and pust in Cerkno:
-https://steemit.com/life/@kroflvs/25-larfs