It is believed that mermaids are, in fact, virtuous girls after death. They lack human warmth and love, that’s why they come out of the water, forests or rye during the mermaid week. People from Lyubanshchyna have reconstructed of the oldest Belarusian rites — seeing a mermaid. See photos by belsat.eu.
On Sunday night, at the end of the mermaid week, several girls looking like mermaids and decorated with maple wreaths and flowers appeared in the village of Kuzmichy, Lyuban district.
Local women and guests first took the beauties around the village, then surrounded them with three circle dances.
Mermaid girls also threw wreaths, but this time towards the local guys who were to quickly catch the wreath and find a mermaid using it, to later tie her an apron and braid plait. According to the tradition, it is believed that the deceased chaste girls that had turned into mermaids, lack human love, so during the mermaid week they went out to the settlements and seduced men or women, and then they could even fondle them to death.
When it became almost dark, all the mermaid girls headed to the river to throw there wreaths with wishes of love and fertility.
After tearing maple branches from the head of the chief mermaid, the girls began to run away, so she did not touch them anymore until the next mermaid week.
Photo and text – Vyachaslau Radzimich, belsat.eu