According to the folk calendar - Gordeev Day

According to the folk calendar, Gordeev Day is celebrated on January 16 (January 3, old style) The name of the day comes from the church date of honoring the memory of the holy martyr Gordius Living in the 3rd century, he devoted himself to serving the Lord During the time of persecution of Christians, Gordius was subjected to terrible torture and was executed for refusing to renounce God and accept the faith of the pagans The Gordeev people commemorated the day that pride is a vice that does not lead to anything useful On this date, peasants avoided boasting and pride, especially for the success of children and good health They believed that evil spirits were rampant across the earth, so a braggart could instantly lose everything he had acquired Gordeev's day was considered successful for healing mental illnesses A person who was possessed by evil spirits was called mentally ill Such a possessed person was sent to a healer for treatment It was on Gordeev's day that he began the ritual, seating the patient on a boulder in an open field so that the winds blew on him from all sides They put a white shirt on him backwards and read out a spell, sprinkling the patient with dew collected in the summer The proofreading ceremony was carried out at dawn for seven days The evil spirits, emerging from the mentally ill, looked nearby for a new owner These could be people or animals, most often cows Therefore, the peasants avoided the place of such treatment in every possible way People believed that on Gordeev's Day, evil spirits climb into the barn and milk the cows, and along with the milk, they milk the blood of the animal, which then gets sick and dies To prevent evil spirits from harming the cattle, they protected them: they hung a tallow candle on the gate, placed aspen branches at the entrance to the barn, and asked the brownie for protection On this day the cows were treated with attention They cleaned the barn of manure, laid a straw bedding, and plugged the holes in the barn from drafts They were also fed to their fill, treating the horned loaf or oatmeal milk porridge If hares were spotted near the village on Gordeev Day, then frosts were expected; if they rushed across the field, heavy snowfall was expected Frost on the trees meant that the next few days would be sunny Snow-white clouds foreshadowed the coming snowstorms The cold would set in if the moon was bright The day predicted similar weather in March