Nov 29, 2025
“in order for the farmers to ensure a rich harvest, they used to shake the fences at Ondrej (Feast of St. Andrew).”—Moravian Folk Custom
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“in order for the farmers to ensure a rich harvest, they used to shake the fences at Ondrej (Feast of St. Andrew).”—Moravian Folk Custom
by Ondřej Trojan
Chiemsee
Auston Matthews scores the first goal of the game for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Ondřej Kaše scores the second goal of the game for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Cut him some slack he grew up in the soviet regim of Czechoslovakia
Custom lettering created for Camper, Spring/Summer 2016.
© Ondrej Bachor, 2016.
/weeps
Saint Andrew’s Eve and Day (Nov. 29th/30th)
„Milý svatý Ondřeji,
prosím tebe potají,
aby se mi ve snu zjevil ten,
který je mi za muže usouzen.“
"Dear Saint Andrew,
I secretly ask you
to let the one
who is considered my husband appear to me in a dream."
Saint Andrew is, among other things, the patron saint of brides. That is why on his feast day, single girls performed rituals that were supposed to summon a groom.
The Feast of St. Andrew (November 30) is considered the beginning of the Advent season. However, the date of the first Sunday of Advent is flexible, so Advent can begin after this feast. Based on the liturgical calendar, the Advent season falls on a Sunday between November 27 and December 3. Since the Feast of St. Andrew marks the beginning of Advent, it is associated with similar customs and traditions as Christmas Eve, the gateway to the Christmas season. People also believed that on this day demons emerged from the depths of the earth to open the gate to the cruel reign of winter and frost.
Who was St. Andrew?
St. Ondrej is the patron saint of fishermen, farmers, miners, butchers and brides.
St. Ondrej was a fisherman and came from Bethsaida in Galilee. Already at a young age, the teachings of John the Baptist and later of Jesus Christ appealed to him, and he became their first disciple.
St. Andrew is already mentioned in the Gospels, which mention him as the first apostle called by Jesus Christ himself, but they also mention him in connection with the miraculous feeding of 5,000 people.
However, we can find more information about his life in the apocryphal book Acts of Andrew (from the 3rd century).
According to legends, Ondrej is also credited with miraculous healing, he was said to be able to heal the physically and mentally ill. He saved a boy from a burning house with drops of water.
He spent his life in several places in today's Russia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. His life often hung in the balance because of his fervent Christian convictions and the conversion of pagans to the true faith.
He was crucified on an X-shaped cross. He was not nailed, only tied, and he died on the cross for three days.
Andrew is often depicted as an apostle in a long tunic with a cloak, with a book or a scroll, but also with an X-shaped cross on which he was crucified, with a rope with which he was tied, or with a net and fish.
Customs and traditions on St. Andrew
In such a way, in order for the farmers to ensure a rich harvest, they used to shake the fences at Ondrej. Elsewhere, e.g. in Liptov, shepherds used to walk with a bundle of sticks, from which the landlady chose one and beat the shepherd's legs so that he would be sharp when grazing.
Cooking dumplings
The girls put a piece of paper with the first name of the groom in the dumplings. Dumplings were thrown into the water. When they started to boil and the dumpling came to the surface, always another girl caught the dumpling.
She picked a piece of paper with a name on it from the dumpling. It was customary for a girl to marry a young man whom she plucked out of the dumpling. Alternatively, they put the cooked dumpling under the plate and each girl took one out.
Lead casting (I use wax)
Both boys and girls gathered in the house where they usually went to spin. They sat around on the benches and there was a small chair in the center. The most curious girl usually sat on this one.
The boys were heating lead on a spoon. They poured lead through a key into a bowl of water. They poured it over the head in the middle of a sitting girl, who recited the words: "Ondreju, Ondreju, I pour lead on you so that you will let me know who I will have as a husband."
According to the shape in which the lead solidified, the girls guessed the future. What profession will the chosen one have, or when will the wedding and christenings take place.
Fortune telling with mugs
On St. Andrew's Night, shepherds or spice-making women (báby kořenářky—that’s me!!) would tell fortunes to people using four small cups. These were placed upside down on the table and four magical things were hidden under them - a piece of fresh bread, clay from the cemetery, a ring and a comb. Anyone who wanted to know their future pointed to one of the cups and, based on what it hid, found out what awaited them. A comb signified illness, clay from the cemetery death, a ring wedding, bread wealth and a happy life.
Other Fortune-telling
On Ondrej, a person took 4 mugs and turned them upside down. Under each of them he placed clay, bread, a comb, and under the last ring. The others, without knowing what each mug was hiding, turned one mug at a time.
a mug with a ring predicted a wedding.
Girls threw a lead ball (St. Andrew's Ball) over the roofs of cottages. Depending on where the ball landed, that was where the groom was supposed to come from. At midnight, girls would come and knock on the henhouse. If the rooster crowed first, the girl was supposed to get married the following year. However, if the hen crowed first, the wedding had to wait. When a girl went to the woodshed to collect firewood, she counted the wooden logs. An even number meant a bachelor, an odd number meant a widower. Girls looked for the identity and appearance of their future groom in the reflection of the water surface in a well or a pond, in a hole cut in the ice, mirrors or a chimney. In some places, girls also shook elderberry to the accompaniment of a nursery rhyme. This was also supposed to indicate to the girl who her groom would be.
I tremble, I tremble without
My dog is calling me.
Where is my dear today?
I'm shaking, I'm shaking this fence
All the saints in my life.
Where is my beloved today,
Let the dog bark at me there.
Girls getting married would also put a piece of fresh bread on a shovel and offer it to a dog. The girl whose piece the dog ate was the first to enjoy the festivities.
St. Andrew's night was considered magical. As it was another thin day, various ghosts and demons were awakening in the darkness of the night.
Therefore, various protective ceremonies and rituals were performed , many of which were quite strongly oriented towards the approaching solstice. All outside work had to be finished before dusk, otherwise sinister devils and witches would visit the farm.
Since it is the holiday of St. St. Andrew's Day is considered one of the most important fortune-telling days, it was said that what a person dreams about during St. Andrew's Night will come true.
Ondrej's Pranostics
If bees fly to Ondrej, it will be a barren year.
If it's nice on Ondrej, the whole year will be nice on all holidays.
When on St. Ondreja is snowing, the snow will stay for a long time.
When Saint Andrew puts the frost on the fence, we don't have to fear floods or water.
When St. Ondrej makes a nice journey for Lucia, even Nicholas praises him.
Only a crooked landlord goes to plow Ondrej.
Ondrej, when it rains, will be soaked every month throughout the winter.
On Saint Andrew, put a sleigh in the yard.
Biely Ondrej, bad year.
In Znojmo particularly:
St. Andrew (November 30) was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus's company. After his martyrdom, he became the patron saint of fishermen, for example, and his intercession was also sought in matters of marriage.
In folk culture, the night before St. Andrew's Day is another of the aforementioned fateful nights of the pre-Christmas period, and after Christmas Day it is the second most frequented day of divination of the whole year. The practices were aimed at love and marital problems, but also at predictions of the weather, health and death. Various customs - from pouring lead, shaking a fence or tree, knocking on a chicken coop, counting logs or chips, throwing a shoe to uncovering cups with symbolic content - generally appear among the Czech and German ethnic groups, with local variations.
In what is probably the most well-known custom, emphasis was placed on the significance of the dream of St. Andrew's Night, with the help of which a girl could reveal her future partner after a day of fasting. Also in the Horáček and Podhoráček regions, girls fasted on St. Andrew's Day so that their future husband would appear to them in a dream.
Municipal gatherings were also held, at which the shepherd was rewarded and a contract was negotiated with him for the next year. Grazing continued until St. Andrew's Day, but it usually ended earlier. Later, these gatherings became accounting gatherings, the so-called "St. Andrew's Day grain sprinkling", during which farmers collected money and home products from cottagers and second-hand workers for being able to graze on their land.
In richer villages, feasts were held at the gatherings, which were sometimes joined by women. However, they usually arranged their own feast, known in the Velké Meziříč region as "housewife's feast". More often, however, communal gatherings fell on the earlier feast of St. Martin, which has already been mentioned earlier. St. Andrew's Night was also a time of miracles and love guessing in the German Podyjí and Lower Austria. The quiet Lenten-like period, filled with contemplation and visits to the morning rorats (masses), was enriched by various visits by mysterious masked beings.
Sviatok sv. Ondreja oslavujeme 30.11. Viete aké tradície a zvyky sa spájajú s týmto dňom? Sv. Ondrej...
Svátek svatého Ondřeje (30. listopad) je považován za počátek adventního období. Datum první neděle adventní je však pohyblivé, advent může
"Milý svatý Ondřeji, prosím tebe potají, aby se mi ve snu zjevil ten, který je mi za muže usouzen." Svatý Ondřej, bratr svatého Petra, apošt
Zvyky a tradice obcí na Znojemsku