Every year on March 1st, the first day of spring, Romanians and Moldovans celebrate Mărțișor. On this day, everyone exchanges flowers and mărțișor ornaments, symbols of light and happiness. Mărțișor usually represents jewelry made of threads, or often two dolls, one half white and the other half red. It is believed that a person who wears a mărțișor will have a year full of abundance and health. These ornaments are hung on a tree in the house's yard on March 31st, thus promising protection for the entire coming year.

The white and red colors of mărțișor did not appear by chance. According to one legend, on the first day of March, a gentle and fragile snowdrop appeared at the forest's edge. Spring noticed it, rejoiced, and decided to help the flower by starting to destroy the snow around this snowdrop, cleaning the ground, saving it from thorny branches. But when Winter saw this, she became angry and stirred up a blizzard and stormy snow over the snowdrop. The snowdrop immediately wilted from the harsh wind. And then Spring decided to protect the flower and covered it with her hands, but at the same time pricked herself on thorns. A drop of hot blood fell from her finger onto the snow. The flower came to life. And since then, the colors of Mărțișor - red and white - symbolize red blood on white snow.

Also, on Mărțișor day, a special dish with the same name is prepared. It must necessarily be white and red in color. Truth be told, earlier this custom was a bit different, and the dish was prepared only after hanging the jewelry on the tree branch. Then the young ladies would go to the fair and buy caș cheese, sheep cheese, which was the main ingredient of the Mărțișor dish. This post is sponsored by our partners Wigs