Jurjevo (St George's Day)

Old Slavic Custom

It has passed, it has passed the colourful..

It's come, it's come, it's come Green George!

Bela Krajina is known in Slovenia for Green George, the shepherd dressed in birch branches who brings spring every year on 24 April (the feast of St George). The mythical figure of Green George, derived from Slavic beliefs of the pre-Christian era and showing the cyclical nature of life and the year, is still alive and well in Bela Krajina thanks to an ancient ritual.

In the pre-Christian era, St George or Green George was called Jarilo. Jarilo was the son of the supreme god Perun, but he was kidnapped by Veles and taken to the underworld, Virej, where he became a wolf herder. In spring, Jarilo opened the gates of Virej, released water on the earth, escaped from the underworld, and brought life back to our lands. In the old Slavic mythology of Jarilo or George, the story is further complicated by his sister Mara and the gift of a golden apple.

Slavic myths and their fragments are present in the old Bela Krajina songs because you still give an apple to the one you love. The songs were sung while dancing in a circle, which is also a symbol of cyclicity. The wheel dance in Bela krajina is found in villages along the Kolpa River, where the Uskoks were settled to protect us from Turkish invaders in the Middle Ages. In the interior of Bela Krajina, the wheel dance was not danced, but they knew the Green George because Juraši would lead the Green George, dressed in young birch branches, through the villages and sing a song. The authentic shepherd's shawl has survived the longest in the places where it originated.

In Črnomelj, the Green George ritual was created in the town center and included more actors than the village custom. The Juraši dress the Green George in a green basket and lead him to the old town center, where he is symbolically killed by plucking leaves from a tree, and the last act takes place on the bridge under the Church of the Holy Spirit, where the green birch basket is thrown into the Dobličica River, symbolically back underground, to return the following year and bring spring.