concept
Trinity Sunday wreath divination (Semik)
Wreath divination
also: Semik
A genuine Ukrainian (Little Russian) folk custom in which unmarried girls wove flower wreaths and floated them on a river at Trinity Sunday, reading the wreath's drift as an omen of their future husband -- described affectionately in the caption "Trinity Sunday."
Reading notes
- To F. O. Shekhtel, 27 May 1886. Babkino. §6 на Троицу
Troitsa (Trinity Sunday), the movable Orthodox feast fifty days after Easter marking Pentecost, in late May/early June -- a major early-summer holiday and traditional occasion for country visiting; Chekhov names it as the deadline by which Shekhtel must come to Babkino or face a second postage-due parcel.
- To N. A. Leikin, 1883. Moscow. §6 Trinity
Trinity Sunday (Pentecost in the Orthodox calendar, associated with greenery and birch branches); Chekhov jokingly promises Leikin "something green" -- another serious piece -- to mark the feast, as he did with "Willow Switch."
- Captions for Drawings §264 TRINITY SUNDAY
Semik/Trinity Sunday wreath-casting was a genuine Ukrainian (Little Russian) folk custom: unmarried girls wove flower wreaths and floated them on a river, reading the wreath's drift as a fortune-telling omen about their future husband.