Name day of everyone named Ignat (from the Latin, the name means ‘fire’), Ognyan, Ognyana. This feastday marks the beginning of the folk New Year. On the evening before, the mistress of the house prepares the table for Ignazhden – meatless dishes and a big bun, divided into pieces in the morning by the “crawler” (i.e. the first guest to the house). Then she takes with a spoon some of the boiled wheat and corn (chinichka), tastes some of it, and the rest she throws over the fire for the chicken to fly freely and the wheat to grow high.
more...