The whole life of a person, one way or another, is associated with certain ritual actions. And although in the modern world they have lost their meaning a little, the actions themselves remain. People celebrate weddings, births of children, calendar holidays. And every action is accompanied by some rituals or superstitions that our ancestors revered and considered magical.
Ritual folklore is family and calendar. Calendar rituals are associated with the fact that ancestors, through spells and rituals, tried to achieve good harvests and protect themselves from the vagaries of nature. Calendar rituals were different in each season of the year and many holidays are associated with them that have survived to this day. Winter ritual games were accompanied by the performance of carols and songs, fortune-telling. Most of the holidays were celebrated according to the church calendar. The crown of the winter holidays was Maslenitsa, which chased away this winter. The festivities lasted a whole week, and on the last day a scarecrow of winter was necessarily burned, Maslenitsa songs were sung, which were supposed to "call" spring. But after Shrovetide there was a fast, which could not be broken with any amusements. On Easter week, spring rituals were accompanied by spells of spring, cattle conspiracies, round dances, and fortune-telling. All the moments of the rituals were accompanied by the corresponding songs: Vesnyanka, Semytsky and Trinity songs. The songs clearly expressed the motives of the cult of agriculture, the identification of living nature. The time has come for love motives. After Easter, the first spring weddings were traditionally played. And the wedding ceremony already belongs to the family. At the wedding, one could hear the largest selection of family ritual folklore. These are laments, and crying, and conspiracies, and riddles, lyrical and magnificient songs. And every stage of the wedding was accompanied by its own legend. For example, “the bride's farewell to beauty” was accompanied by laments from the bridesmaids, in which they complained about the hard life of the bride. Each stage of the wedding bore its own name - matchmaking, armwrestling, conspiracy, drunkenness, etc., and was accompanied by buffoonery and dancing. The ceremonies associated with the birth and upbringing of children were designed to protect the baby from evil spirits and the evil eye. Now these sayings have become part of our everyday life. Many parents use Russian nursery rhymes and sayings in communicating with a child, not paying attention to its true meaning. The singing language of Russian folklore is well accepted by young children, preparing them for their first independent speech. At the funeral, laments were performed, in which the deceased was mourned, and the future life of his family, which had lost its breadwinner, was depicted. Specially invited women performed the oaths.
