November 30 is the day of St. Andrew or Sv. Ondřej in Czech. This day and night are the perfect time to predict the future!
This date used to be considered the beginning of winter and beginning of Advent. People attributed magical powers to night, especially the power to predict future. They would ask the nature to reveal their future love and marriage, next year’s crops, even fate and death.
Future Predictions on the Night of St. Andrew
Love and Marriage
St. Andrew is the patron saint of brides and questions about the future marriage were one of the most common ones. Single girls would have several methods of finding out what the future has in store for them. Here are some of those methods:
- Prepare dough for knedlíky. Split it into 5 pieces, place a piece of paper with a boy’s name inside of 4 of those pieces. One piece stay empty. Boil all pieces in a pot full of water and catch the first one to float. If this piece contains a name, that’s your future husband. If it contains none, you won’t marry in the near future.
- Cut a hole in the ice in your local river and look into the water in the moonlight. The shadow that reflects in it is the shadow of your future husband.
- Plant a cherry tree twig into a mug. If it blooms before December 24, you will marry next year.
- Each unmarried girl in the house places a piece of bread on a shovel and all pieces are offered to a dog. Whose piece of bread the dog eats first will marry first.
- Girls would stand in a circle around a blindfolded goose. Whoever the goose walks towards will marry first.
- Just like on December 24, young girls would pour lead. On this day, however, they would mostly predict the qualities and profession of their future husbands.
- In some regions, girls believed that the predictions would be most accurate if done in bed, right before going to sleep.
| “Svatý milý Ondřeji, prosím tebe potají, ať se mi zjeví ve snu ten, jenž za muže mi usouzen.” | “Dear St. Andrew, I ask you secretly to make the one destined to be my husband appear in my dreams.” |
- In Kopanice, girls would place three twigs under their pillow. One peeled, one half-peeled and one not peeled at all. In the morning, they would reach for one without looking. Peeled twig meant marrying a single man, half-peeled meant marrying a widower and not peeled twig mean no marriage the next year.
- On St. Andrew’s night, girls would come to the chicken cook asking:
| “Kohoutku, kohoutku, zakokrhej, muže-li dostanu, vědět mi dej! Slepičky, vy nechte kokotání, nekazte, nekazte mi vdávání.” | “Crow, dear rooster, let me know if I get a husband! Dear hens, don’t you cluck, don’t spoil my marrying.” |
If the rooster sounded first, the girl would marry. If the hens clucked first, the girl should come back next year.
Other predictions and rituals
- Place four mugs bottom up. Hide a piece of the following one under each mug: some earth, piece of bread, a ring and a comb. Let people choose their mugs to know what’s in store for them in the upcoming year. Earth means death, bread means riches, comb means illness and ring means marriage.
- To protect themselves from hexes, people would sew toad jaws into tiny silk satchels and wear them as amulets.
One very cruel way
There was one very cruel way of predicting one’s love future and attracting love. At the night before St. Andrew’s day, a girl would catch a frog, smear it with honey and while still alive, bury it in an anthill. The next day, predictions would be made from the bones of that frog. Hook-shaped bones would attract young men, shovel-shaped bones would repel them. Some girls would grind frog bones and make magic potions or use the powder for baking to either attract the one they wanted or repel the one their parents wanted them to marry.
Also, if the ants cleaned the bones well, it was a sign of upcoming riches. The contrary was a sign of illness and hardship.
Protection of the Day of St. Andrew
You don’t spin yarn on the Day of St. Andrew or the wolves will roam around your house. Also, just like on the Day of St. Agatha, there are ways to protect one’s home and family against possible fire:
- Collect dew in the early morning, use them to prepare dough starter. Make dough, split it into 4 loafs, let them “bake” in the sun and place one loaf under each corner of the roof of your house.
Weather Folk Sayings
It is not uncommon that the weather gets a little bit warmer on November 30. This phenomenon is known as the Andrew-Nicolas warming (ondřejsko-mikulášské oteplení), named after this day and the upcoming St. Nicolas Day. People would predict the winter weather and even the next year’s weather from what happens on this day, which gave origin to some interesting weather folk sayings.
- “Když na Ondřeje sněží, sníh dlouho poleží.” – If it snows on St. Andrew’s Day, the snow will stay for a long time.
- “Svatý Ondřej dělá led a svatý Jiří jejláme.” – St. Andrew makes ice, St. George breaks it.
- “Na svatého Ondřeje ještě se nám ohřeje, ale na svatého Mikuláše už je zima celá naše.” -St. Andrew’s Day will get warm but on St. Nicolas’ Day, winter will be ours.
- “Poletují-li na svatého Ondřeje včely, bude neúrodný rok.” – If the bees fly on St. Andrew’s Day, the next year won’t be plentiful.
- “O Všech svatých větry-li jsou, znamenají zimu proměnlivou; přijdou-li ale s Ondřejem, dobré zimy se nadějeme.” – Wind on All Saints’ Day means the winter weather will be changeable. If the wind comes on St. Andrew’s Day, the winter will be nice.
