According to the folk calendar - Rodion Icebreaker

On April 21 (according to the old calendar style - April 8), people celebrate Rodion with Ice The date owes its name to Saint Herodion of Patras, a Christian martyr, whose memory is honored by the Orthodox Church on this day Herodion was one of the 70 apostles and was related to the Apostle Paul As one of the first spreaders of Christianity in the Balkans, he was appointed to the post of bishop in Patara Herodion managed to convert many residents to Christianity However, the pagans of the city ambushed the bishop and subjected him to beating Years later, opponents of Christianity executed Herodion by beheading And among the people, Rodion was nicknamed Icebreaker, since on that day the ice floes on the reservoirs were breaking Using them, residents determined the future grain yield: if the ice floes were found piled on top of each other, the grain harvest was expected to be rich The date was also called Rodion - turn out the shafts Shafts were two long sticks that served as a transitional attachment between a horse and a sleigh or cart The reason for this name of the day was the rearrangement of the shafts from the sleigh to the cart And in the southern regions the snow had long since melted and peasants began to cultivate the land They dug up vegetable gardens, harnessed horses or oxen to the plow, and plowed the soil in the fields The poor, who did not have draft animals, harnessed themselves to the plow Then oats and barley were sown They carried out cultivation even in rainy weather, when there was a soggy mess of earth underfoot, since there was little time for sowing The planting period was determined not only by warm days The peasants watched the frogs - their croaking heralded the beginning of sowing They also observed mole holes: if holes appeared above the ground, then grain could be sown The sowing period lasted from the beginning to the end of the flowering of apple trees Residents believed that the meeting of the moon and the sun took place on Rodion Icebreaker It was believed that they dispersed for the whole winter from the beginning of the frosts, and on Rodionov day they converged again and exchanged news If the weather on a given day was sunny and warm, it means that the sun and the moon were having a friendly conversation, but rain, cold and wind meant they were arguing On Rodion Icebreaker, residents paid respect to the river In the morning they came to the pond and washed themselves with its water, believing that it would give them health And girls who had parted with their lover, or widows, performed a ritual with water to drive away melancholy They took water with their left palm, splashed it on their faces and read a special spell Signs on Rodion Icebreaker served residents instead of weather forecasts A sunny day foreshadowed early summer, and a rainy day, on the contrary, late summer A windless and warm evening promised a dry summer If the red moon rose on Rodion in the evening, then the next day it would rain