According to the folk calendar - Laurentian Day

On February 11 (the old style date is January 29), according to the folk calendar, Laurentian Day is celebrated, named in honor of the Monk Lawrence of Pechersk, who lived in the 12th century According to legend, the saint dedicated his life to serving the Lord, wanting to become a hermit monk But the brethren of the monastery dissuaded the saint from seclusion, considering it a difficult test Soon Lavrenty secretly went to another monastery and secluded himself there For his devotion and constant prayers, God endowed Lawrence with the gift of healing from serious illnesses, including the treatment of those possessed by demons Once in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery, the saint cured many parishioners through prayer After his death, Lawrence was elevated to the rank of saint, and the people began to pray to him for the healing of eye diseases and blindness According to legends, during the Laurentian snowstorms, all the evil spirits came to light and carried out pogroms with the help of wind and snow: they covered courtyards and roads with snowdrifts, broke tree branches, and tore roofs from homes But the dirty tricks of the witches were more dangerous They found grass that was not covered with snow and made creases in it, causing damage It was believed that the more the grass in the area was twisted, the more fractures there were, the more damage was caused Sometimes the witches twisted their hair or sprinkled grave soil on the grass Damage was done for a meager harvest, for the illness or death of the owner of the plot, for the death of livestock Its action worked if a person inadvertently cut off the enchanted bunch In order to remove the witches' creases, experienced healers were called in They used a poker or an aspen stake, split at the end, read incantations and burned the pulled out hay Wanting to protect the property from the machinations of witches, thistle branches were stuck in the corners of the plot and yard to repel evil spirits It was also set on fire in the stove in order to fumigate the chimney and prevent the witch from getting into the house through it On Laurentian day the weather could change Sometimes it was like early spring with a drop, and other times like a harsh winter with snowstorms Looking at the billowing smoke, the peasants prepared for the warmth Long-burning logs in the stove meant rapid warming If you noticed a moon with a red tint, strong gusts of wind were expected But the new moon foreshadowed similar weather for the first two weeks of the next month, and the new moon for the second two