In the south of Romania, in Oltenia, Muntenia, Dobrogea and even in the south of Moldova, where drought was more frequent, the legend of Ioan Cel Frumos is told, also named Caloian (in Greek kalos = “beautiful” and Iani = “Ioan”), often assimilated to nature, which dies only to rise year after year after year…
The story goes that a widow and her son once lived in a village in the Danube plain in the old days. The boy, Ioan, named after the name given in front of God, was extraordinary handsome, had a sweet voice like honey and warm eyes as the sun at noon, where birds came from the earth to eat from the palm and followed him everywhere without doing any harm. And so had the news of the kindness and beauty of his heart that people had begun to call Caloian Ioan cel Frumos (John the Beautiful) in the Greeks’ words of those times.
In one of those years, life was very difficult. The rain hadn’t touched the earth for a long time, the sun was burning high, but its heat was drying everything out. The earth stretched out to the skies, fluttering wings of air, waving from the early hours of the morning, a sign of thirst and warmth. The villagers’ barges were empty, each stream of water was in great search, and the greenery was withering visible with eyes.
One good morning, not having anything to put on the table, Caloian’s mother sent him to look around the village for some herbs, tree bark, whatever could have been eaten by them or by the few animals near the house.
The child took the forest path near the house, but did not return. The sun was high in the sky when his mother began to look for him, and as time went by and the boy was nowhere to be found, her despair increased. She was looking for him like a desperate mother through the valleys, hills, forests, garden. Soon, all the children of the village joined him in Caloian’s search and together they sang:
“Caloiță, iță,
Son of a lady
Your mother is looking for you
Through the dense forest
With a burnt heart”
Towards evening, the child’s body was found in a fountain left at the edge of a field, a well left without water in that dry year. He had leaned over the stone ledge, trying to slip with the wooden bucket on the dry bottom of the dried spring, to bring to the surface the still green vegetation raised to the coolness of the earth in there.
The mother went down to the well to bring her child to the surface. Legend says that immediately after she pulled him off the wet mud, leaping to the surface, that clean water began to rise behind him. The earth was also mourning the loss of Caloian.
Brought to the village, the child was welcomed with great grief by his mother, adorned with wreaths of young branches and buried after the custom, in the cry of the mother and of the children in the village.
“Ene, Ene, Scaloiene
O, o, o…
Since the rain has stopped
O, o, o…
The wheat has dried
It dried and was sad
O, o, o…
Since the rain has stopped.
Ene, Ene, Scaloiene,
O, o, o…
Go with the flowers
O, o, o…
And come with the rains
To open the gates
O, o, o…
Let the little girls enter.
Ene, Ene, Scaloiene
O, o, o…
Open the gates
O, o, o…
Let the rains flow
Let the rivers flow
O, o, o…
To fill the groves …”
Legend says that as soon as the thin body found its quietness in the grave, after being covered with earth dampened by the tears of his mother, Caloian’s soul went to heaven, the too-clean soil of his world, asking for forgiveness for the bad and mercy for thirsty fields.
And the legend also says that, oblivious, forgetting people’s wickedness, the sky began to cry. He cried for forgiveness, he cried for mercy, he mourned the death of the child with the sun’s hair.
“Iene-Iene, Caloiene,
Take the torches from heaven
And open the gates,
And starts the rains,
To flow like torrents,
Fill the streams
among all the valleys,
Fill the wells,
To raise the grain,
Flowers, greens,
Let the hay grow
Let the cattle feed,
Be many breads”.
“Iene, Caloiene!
Young man that I buried you,
For the charity I gave you,
Lots of water and lots of wine
To give the Lord as a saint,
A lot of water to wet us,
Make us fruits a lot!”
From this legend draws a ritual present throughout the Danube area – that of Caloian. This custom accompanied by the song celebrated, at the beginning, an emissary sent as messenger to the god of nature, who asked him to “tie” or “untie” the rains so that the vegetation would die and then resurrect in a permanent cycle of life on earth. In time, the Christians replaced the pagan divinity of nature with Saint John the Baptist, the date of the Caloian celebration being set around the summer solstice (June 24). On this occasion the Caloian was made – a doll made of various materials (clay, rags, straw or wooden twigs), adorned with flowers and ritually buried in a ceremony similar to funerals (cries, charity, table). After three days and three nights, the Caloian was unearthed, brought to the village and mowed again before being thrown into a fountain or allowed to float on a water eye. At the end of the ceremony, the girls from the village gathered at one of them and made a pie called ghizman which they gave to the poor people and the other villagers. The celebration continued with songs from the flute and bagpipe, which invoked rain and abundance, but also round dance until late at night.
Bibliography:
· “2-4 May 2017 – Caloianul / Scaloianul”, http://www.traditieialomita.ro/obiceiuri/cu-data-mobila/caloianul-scaloianul/