According to the folk calendar - Free Tree

According to the folk calendar, the holiday of the Free Tree is celebrated on June 6 (May 24, old style) On this day in Rus', the rose hips were honored - a bush called the wild rose or wild rose From the day the svoborina tree blossomed, summer time began among the people Among the people there was a legend about the appearance of rose hips One day, a wealthy ataman wooed a young Kuban girl The girl's family agreed to the future marriage, but the girl's heart belonged to someone else In order not to become the wife of an unloved man, the unfortunate woman ran away from home and hid in the forest Not knowing how to escape the forced marriage, the girl committed suicide Where she died, a wild rose bush grew and bloomed When the Kuban ataman saw him, he wanted to pick the flowering branch Then the branches became covered with thorns and pricked the ataman’s hands until they bled Since then, rose hips have protected themselves from pests with their thorns The people valued rose hips for their beneficial properties Its berries were a storehouse of vitamin C, so necessary for maintaining good health Also, the berries of the svoborin tree had anti-inflammatory, hemostatic and antimicrobial properties They were used to lower blood pressure and treat the genitourinary system The leaves and roots of rose hips were considered no less useful The free tree was associated with love, beauty and freshness Therefore, on this day, the girls hurried to him in the morning and tore flower petals They believed that if you wash your face with wild rose flower petals, you would retain youth and beauty for a long time, and you had to read a special spell It was believed that rose hips could relieve sadness To do this, desperate residents came to the bush and shared their sorrows with it To rid children of their fears, old people read fairy tales to their grandchildren under their family tree On this day, healers collected flowers from rose hips and prepared healing potions from them A love spell potion was also prepared from it Residents broke branches of a flowering bush and carried them into their homes, believing that this would drive away evil spirits The second name of the day was Nikita Borage The day was named Nikita in honor of St Nikita the Stylite, and Borage - for the custom of planting cucumbers in the ground Women planted them in secret from their relatives and neighbors Then a plot for a successful harvest was read over the garden bed If it rained on a given day, residents prepared for a bountiful mushroom harvest A rainbow from the north to the south announced the continuation of bad weather Muffled voices in the air meant the onset of fine days The flowering of rose hips on this day promised a good bite for crucian carp