In Czech, Slovak and Polish villages, a straw figure of winter and death — Morana, Mařena or Marzanna — was dressed in rags, carried out of the village with songs, and thrown into a stream or burned. The young people then returned with a green branch decked with ribbons, "summer" or "the new year," and carried it from house to house. The rite sweeps out winter, sickness and the old year's troubles and welcomes the spring. The version below keeps the shape of the custom while using only materials that can return harmlessly to the earth.

How to do it§

Make the figure. Bind a bundle of straw at one end to form a head and again lower down for a waist; tie a cross-piece for arms. Dress it in undyed cotton or linen scraps. Everything must be natural and biodegradable.
Load it with the winter. Sit with the figure and name what you wish to leave behind: illness, tiredness, a bad habit, quarrels, bad luck. Some families tied a slip of plain paper to the figure for each item, using pencil rather than ink.
Prepare the green branch. Take a few budding twigs and tie natural ribbons to them. This is líto or léto, "summer," which will come back with you.
Carry it out. Carry the figure out of the house and down the street or garden, ideally with friends or family. Old songs announced that "death" was being carried out and "summer" brought in; sing a simple song or say: "We carry the winter out; we bring the summer in."
Let it go. Traditionally the figure was thrown into running water, sometimes after being set alight. Today, choose the gentlest option available:
- in water: only if local rules allow and the figure is pure straw and cotton; let it go into the current and do not look back, as custom demands;
- by fire: burn it in a garden fire bin or permitted bonfire;
- to the earth: take it apart and put it on a compost heap.
Do not look back. Walk away without turning around; many villages held that looking back would bring the sickness home.
Bring in the summer. Carry the ribboned branch home, touch the door with it, and put it in water in the main room.
Wash your hands and face in fresh water as a final cleansing.

Origins and history§

The custom of "carrying out death" was widespread in Central Europe. In Poland, fifteenth-century church synods prohibited a ceremony of drowning an image of death on a Sunday in Lent, which shows that it was already well established; the chronicler Jan Długosz in the same century also wrote of Marzanna as a goddess, though his list of Polish deities is now regarded as a learned construction based on Roman models. In Bohemia and Moravia the figure was carried out on Smrtná neděle, the fifth Sunday of Lent, and in Slovakia, Silesia and Lusatia similar customs are recorded from the early modern period onward.

James George Frazer gave the custom a famous place in The Golden Bough (1890), in the chapter on "Carrying out Death," interpreting it as the killing of a vegetation spirit so that it might revive in spring. Modern folklorists treat that theory with caution, and many see the rite more simply as a seasonal expulsion of winter, sickness and misfortune, comparable to other European rites of driving out evil at the turn of the year. The Church, for its part, alternately forbade it and tolerated it as children's play.

In twentieth-century Czechoslovakia and Poland the custom survived mainly among schoolchildren and folklore groups. Today it is widely kept on the first day of spring, and Slavic native-faith groups treat Morana as a goddess of winter and death within their reconstructed religion. See indigenous and ancient religions and the wheel of the year.

Variations§

The summer tree: in some regions a small decorated tree was carried; elsewhere a girl dressed in green played "summer."
Easter water: washing in a stream at dawn on Easter morning, in silence, for health and beauty, is another Slavic spring cleansing custom.
Spring cleaning: sweeping the house thoroughly before Easter was, in many households, part of the same idea of clearing the old year out.

Safety and good sense§

Never put plastic, wire, synthetic fabric, dyes or paint into a river; much modern criticism of the custom concerns pollution.
Check local rules before throwing anything into water or lighting a fire; many places ban both.
Fire: use a proper fire bin, keep water nearby, never leave it unattended, and keep children well back.
Water: stay on safe banks, especially in spring floods.
Letting go of a habit or worry is easier with support; the rite can mark a decision, but health, addiction or debt problems deserve professional help.

Sources and further reading§

The Golden Bough — James George Frazer, 1890
Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern Europe — Kaarina Aitamurto & Scott Simpson (eds.), 2013
The Bathhouse at Midnight: Magic in Russia — W. F. Ryan, 1999
Russian Folk Belief — Linda J. Ivanits, 1989