Winter Birds & the Last Sheaf
Winter Birds & the Last Sheaf
In Baltic & Slavic folklore, the last sheaf of harvest was kept for winter’s deepest days—never threshed, but made sacred.
🌾 Didukh (Ukraine, Poland, Belarus): brought indoors on Christmas/Yule Eve, set in the holy corner to shelter ancestral souls through the cold until Epiphany.
🌾 Birds’ Sheaf (Lithuania, Belarus): a smaller bundle tied with red thread, hung outside on Solstice morning for the birds.
Why birds? Because in winter, the dead were believed to take wing. Feeding birds = feeding ancestors.
From the same sky of Alkonost, Sirin, Gamayun & Rarog—
the cycle endures: Harvest feeds the living → The living feed the dead → The dead guard the returning sun.
Unlike the Scandinavian Juleneke, this tradition splits its magic: one sheaf warms the ancestors indoors, the other feeds them in feathered form.
So in the hush of winter, when you hang grain for birds, you’re keeping the old bonds alive— and warming the dead until spring. ✨
🎨Johann Siegwald Dahl.