Fragile
legacy from our ancestors, legends, tell us different variants of the
apparition of the delicate symbol of spring’s beginning, the Martisor.
What counts, is the traditional red and white colors of the Martisor
that emblemize the forthcoming warmth, and not the genuine history of its
appearance. Frozen hearts are melting, smiles are relumed, and bourgeons of new
hopes are coming to live. Historians state, that Martisor first appeared 8
thousands years ago. There are known many legends about it, and here follows
one of them.
Once
upon a time, from above the clouds, Spring saw how cold and wasted was
the land that people lived on. Fierce Winter was tempesting, enswathing families
with cold, wilting the fire of human hearts, spreading grief with thorny
blizzard, and slaying the weak bourgeons of hopes with her frost. Spring
turned into a beautiful maiden. Her soul was fervid, her heart was bringing
tenderness, her hands would bestow warmth on everything they touched…
The
snow would melt, as she stepped on the ground, and in the houses would get
warm, and joyful, as she touched them, and she was smiling to people, and
frozen hearts would melt, as she filled them up with hopes and strong love
towards parents, husbands and wives, children, and native place. And the Moldavian
land started to sparkle with smiles, its people were sharing tenderness and
joy, passing the prevernal warmth from hand to hand, from heart to heart, from
soul to soul.
Self
willed Winter rebelled at the sight of this. She was far from being
pleased that her servants, cold, sorrow and grief, were being chased out of the
human world. In this wise she could not harvest what she treated people with:
human fear of the future, hatred towards everything new, tears, laziness and
indifference. That is when Winter decided to perish Spring,
and destroy the people’s source of warmth, hopes, happiness and love…
It
was a long time that Winter searched for Spring and
finally found her: the beautiful maiden was getting rid the ground of the cold
and thorny snow, to give light and warmth to a bourgeon of a snowdrop, a
delicate flower that was first to become the messenger of spring, of the
revival of life on the planet. Perfidious was the attack of the furious Winter,
she enlaced the beautiful maiden with snowy whirlwinds, pricked her with
pointed branches, blinded her with shatters of ice…the injured maiden bent over
the helpless snowdrop to protect it. All her love and warmth Spring
converged into the hope that the flower will survive, but Winter turned out to be
stronger, and the flower was dying. It was then that the last drop of her warm
blood the beautiful maiden gave the snowdrop. One of its flowers remained white
but the other became scarlet, and it was this scarlet flower that Winter
couldn’t slay. The bright colored flower could be seen from far away and people
came to rescue it. People ousted Winter and all her servants, freed Spring,
and she came back, so that human life could become bright, the houses warm, and
so that love and hope could dwell in the hearts. As the symbol of this common
victory, people started to wear Martisor on their chest- a scarlet
blood drop of the dedicated Spring and the white flower of the
snowdrop that awakened the power of people. As the legend tells, people will
rejoice in love, warmth and joy as long as they will remember that they are
strong.










