Dvoeverie-stitches

Master Post

Peasant girl in heather with sickle and basket. 1900 painting by Emil Zschimmer

Though this blog started as a place to showcase my devotional stitching to honor my ancestresses, over the last few years the babky (my Moravian grannies) have been pulling me in all sorts of directions. I’ve never really called myself a witch, though I think it is assumed by a lot of my readers because of the work I do, and I’ve gotten kind of lazy and use it as shorthand a lot (especially in tags) because it’s easy, but I tend to think of myself as a cunning woman and over the last couple of years a novice kořenářka (simplest definition would be root/herb woman, but so much more).

Antos Frolka (1877-1935)

My practice revolves around foraging and preserving wild plants, honoring the animals that I share the land with, honoring the calendar customs and folk Catholicism (that is often only a mask over older pagan customs) of my Moravian ancestresses, and YES—I still stitch! It all falls under the overarching umbrella of ancestor veneration.

Kroatische Stickerin, 1920, Othmar Růžička

Who were the Kořenářky?

Foraging on these Four Acres 2025

My Herbal — Mostly print sources on plants I forage. Includes medicinal, magical, and culinary info. You can also find recipes from my bioregional apothecary, these are from my particular region and are meant to inspire as well as document my own research. Note: I’m beginning to add pages from my kořenářka journal.

My observation of Moravian Calendar Customs from 2022 to the present

2025 Stitching Projects

Moravian Embroidery Patterns

A repeat of the above patterns, but I recently found this somewhat different version:

Červenec/July Devotional Calendar

Saint Margaret throws the sickle into the rye or leads the reapers into the rye

This is how an old Czech proverb confirmed the beginning of the harvest, which in South Moravia really falls around July 13. On the feast day of this saint, a huge event began in Bohemia and Moravia, culminating the year-round toil in the fields. Harvest used to be a huge holiday for the entire village or estate. Whoever had healthy hands and feet worked in the field literally from sunrise to sunset. It is certainly also symbolic in connection with the harvest and a rich harvest that Saint Margaret has been the patron saint of pregnant women since time immemorial.

The average beginning of the winter rye harvest in the Atlas of the Climate of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic falls on July 11 in Čejkovice, July 13 in Znojmo (my ancestral home), July 14. in Kroměříž and Strážnice. On 15.7. in Čáslav and Všechlapy in the Nymburk region. In higher and more northern locations, the harvest begins a few days later, e.g. 22.7. on St. Magdalene's Day "Saint Mary Majdalena, threw the sickle into the barley." And after 26.7. the reapers are led by St. Anna: in Telč (530 m above sea level) the harvest begins on 27.7. and in Jablůnkov and Ostrov in the Karlovy Vary region the harvest begins around 28.7.

Marketa Summer:

The ongoing Marketa Summer (from approx. 8.7. to 15.7.) is the first warm and relatively dry period of time before the arrival of the dog days (from approx. 15.7. to 11.8.). According to some old calendars, the period similar to the dog days began already with the Marketa Summer. Dog Days is a term used by folk meteorology to describe the period of greatest heat. The name came to us from medieval astrology and astronomy. Dog Days owes its name to the brightest star in the sky - Sirius, from the constellation Canis Major. While Sirius is a winter star for us, it appeared to the Romans sometime before the beginning of our era during the summer heat. Thus, Sirius, or the Dog Star, and the period of greatest summer heat - the Dog Days, entered our folk environment together. (Zdeněk Vašků)

From old chronicles:

- L.P. 1346, around the memorial of St. Margaret, an innumerable number of locusts flew into Bohemia, which destroyed all the grain, hay, grass and fruit. (Veleslavín)

- L.P. 1776, on July 13, Saturday before the seventh Sunday of Pentecost, St. Marketa, according to an ancient proverb, introduced the reapers, which sometimes happens earlier, sometimes later.

- L.P. 1782, on July 12th and 13th in our area, according to an ancient proverb, that Saint Margaret introduces the reapers, so it happened and on those days the harvest began, rye and barley alike. May the Lord God be praised forever.

- L.P. 1805, this year Saint Margaret made wreaths of roses, but she did not introduce the reapers throughout the country. Throughout the spring winters, frosts, everything was delayed and also not free from all kinds of destruction. (Fr. Jan Vavák).

- According to the memoirs of the farmer Fr. Vavák from Milčice near Poděbrady, the harvest took place at the end of the 17th century and in the first half of the 18th century already on St. Prokop 4.7. Today, the average beginning of the harvest in the Poděbrady region is two days after St. Margaret's Day.

Old farmers also invoked St. Margaret as the protector of grain:

"Saint Margaret! Give us good pity for wheat, for rye,

so that we have something to live on and to carry to the barn."

Our ancestors also associated St. Margaret's Day with superstitions when growing flax:

- The farmer tried to weave flax to St. Margaret's Day, so that St. Margaret would take it to a dance, so that it would grow a lot.

- When the sheaves of flax were finished, the last sheaf would weave a braid from the flax so that the flax from which the braid is woven would not be pulled out of the ground, and then she bent the top of the braid and stuck it into the ground, so that the flax would rise again next year. (Trhová Kamenice). "St. Margaret takes flax to a dance."

Pranostiky:

- Saint Margaret, threw the sickle into the rye.

- Saint Margaret leads the reapers into the rye. (from 1851)

Original Czech Language Article:

We took a drive yesterday evening to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Mary’s Catholic Church, where I had gathered my first mullein leaves of the year on the wild southern side of St. Mary’s Mountain. This was the most abundant patch of mullein I have found so it seemed a good bet I could find a stalk to dry for next year’s hromnička (one of my most important tools) and some smaller, still flowering stalks to nurture at home for the flowers.

Besides the location being a lovely connection to Mother Mary, the timing was perfect. St. Margaret’s feast day lies approximately at the opposite side of the year from Hromnice (Candlemas) when I’ll be making my hromnička and consecrating it. I love to gather plants during the light half of the year with the intention of bringing their energies into rituals in the opposite half. We were also approaching the new moon.

Hromnice falls on 2 February, which is traditionally the 40th day of and the conclusion of the Christmas–Epiphany season. As St. Margaret is associated with birth she seemed a lovely saint to work with for a ritual that will take place at the end of the season celebrating the birth of the holy child.

Also, though I have come in recent years to consider St. Matthew’s Day (folkloric date February 24) to be the beginning of my devotional year as both one of the two days I celebrate my own birth and the day I’ve found to be regionally appropriate to drown Morana, I consider Hromnice to be a kind of liminal, gestational period leading up to it—not quite the old year and not quite the new year.

And St. Margaret’s Day was traditionally the kickoff of the Harvest season in the lands of my Moravian ancestors—so what better day to for an important personal harvest?

In addition to the mullein, on our walk in that liminal space that is not quite the church grounds, and not yet completely wild, I gathered my first sumac of the year for a Lammas first fruits “lemonade”. I also harvested some honeysuckle and shiso to dry for a ritual tea at Hromnice and some golden aster to add to my growing collection of lesser known medicinal plants used by the indigenous people of this land.

Reverse glass painting likely of Czech, Slovak, or Bohemian origin dating between 1890 and 1930.

It is believed that the person of St. Margaret was invented, but nevertheless she became one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages. According to legend, Saint Margaret came from Antioch (Turkey). She is mentioned by two names. The reason is that the original name Marina is given in the Greek text as Margaret. Under that name she is known in the Czech lands as the saint of the 14 helpers, who, with an earlier monument on 13. 7. with a legendary pranostika, commemorated the beginning of her.

She grew up without a mother, so her father, a pagan priest, entrusted her to the care of a nanny who was a secret Christian. She raised his daughter in the Christian faith, and when Margaret refused to worship pagan gods, her father threw her out of the house. She went to the mountains, where she contentedly grazed her cattle until a powerful ruler fell in love with her.

She confessed to him that she was a Christian and had not renounced her faith. He therefore had her tortured and thrown into prison, where the devil appeared to her in the form of a hideous dragon. However, Margaret drove him away with a Christian cross and miraculously all her wounds healed overnight. The next day, on the orders of the ruler, Margaret was beheaded (around 305 or 282).

How St. Margaret became the protector of pregnant women, legend:

Just before her death, she promised that pregnant women who would pray to her would ensure that their children would come into the world safely. The truth is that St. Margaret became the protector of pregnant women. Perhaps this was also connected with the experience that St. Margaret had with the dragon: the dragon - the devil swallowed the girl, but then spit her out after a while, because her long hair caused unbearable scratching in his throat. Then the girl rejected him with the sign of the cross and the dragon fell - according to today's tradition, into hell. The fact that St. Margaret is the patron saint of pregnant women can also be symbolic in connection with the harvest and a rich harvest.

Folk superstition:

It was customary to light and sacrifice "Margaret's candle" during childbirth to protect the family. As long as it was burning, it was believed that the woman was protected. The pains of childbirth were eased by "Margaret's belt"

She is the patron saint of farmers, nurses, girls, mothers and wives, a helper in difficult childbirth, against infertility, facial diseases and wounds, an intercessor for the fulfillment of all wishes. She is usually depicted with a cross in her hand and a dragon - a symbol of evil or the devil - lies at her feet, sometimes it sits on her hand. Other attributes are: a cross on her crown, a sword, a palm tree, a pearl and the already mentioned dragon.

Art:

Right after leaving Mother Mary an offering this evening at Our Lady of Perpetual Help, St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Altus, I found a hagstone/čarodějný kámen in the gravel right before her.