Merry meet,
Fairy souls,
It is Nina and you are watching Fairy Chamber channel.
I promised you videos from Baltic Pagan Holidays and this video is going to be about Velenens,
Which is a Lithuanian version of Halloween or Samain or Kikri or Day of the Dead.
Velenens,
It lasted from the end of October to the beginning of November and it was the time to remember the Veles,
The passed away people,
The spirits of the dead.
It was not just to remember your close relatives who had passed away,
But in general all people who had passed away and the spirits of the dead ancestors were really big part of celebrating the Velenens.
All the Lithuanian viewers who watch this and if I pronounce these words wrong,
I apologize.
In pagan Lithuania,
There was this very strong belief that during Velenens and during Kutuos,
Which was Christmas or midwinter solstice,
All the passed away relatives and the spirits of the dead would join the living to celebrate together.
The ancestors and the spirits,
They were people's links to the past and to the idea of rebirth in nature.
Because of the worldview of the people,
It was rather animistic and shamanic.
So the spirits,
They could live in the stones,
In the rocks,
In the trees,
In the air.
The invisible spirits,
They're always part of the living as well.
Some of the traditions of Velenens were fires or the hard fires and the hard fires,
They were lit because it was believed that the spirits of the dead were drawn to the fires and they would stay near the fires and then they would also stay near the living people at the same time their descendants.
It's also custom to throw food for the fire for the gods and different Lithuanian deities and as well for the ancestors because it was believed that the smoke would rise into the skies and into the invisible worlds for the deities and the spirits.
The whole time period of Velenens,
It was a great big festival and people made lots of food and ate lots of food and drank lots of drinks and they were also taken to the cemetery.
Some of the food and the drinks at the graves of the ancestors were decorated with wreaths and maybe even handcrafts.
Grain and beer would also be poured into the fire and they would magically go to the spirit world and also grain and also drops of beer were poured into the corner of the houses.
It was believed that the ancestors or the spirits,
In Finland we would call them tonttu or some kind of house spirits,
They lived usually in the corner of the house so that's why people poured ale and some grain to the corners of the house.
All that was done during the ceremony so people would chant ceremonial songs during the ritual.
After visiting the graves there was the family dinner and there was tradition for the head of the house to give a toast called kausas.
The head of the house would put some salt there,
Some grains and some flour into the cup and then he would raise the cup and say for all our dear friends,
Meaning not just the living people but also the passed away people.
Kausas was an offering cup.
Sometimes it was a phone that would pass around to each person in the dinner table and they would all need to take a sip from it.
Some of the traditions was to sing harvest songs and must sing songs that were part of the linens and there was also tradition that is also very common in Finno-Ukrainian cultures and in Estonia that is in the dinner table people would leave empty seats for the some ancestors who had passed away and who were really respected and they would put a plate for them and food for them and drinks for them so the ancestor did join the meal as well.
Obviously when the linens was celebrated in the pagan times there was no electric lights or people ate by the candlelight or they burned small torches.
There was something really interesting that I found from celebration of the linens.
In Lithuania there was a custom to make these small tables for the dead so there were small tables put next to the graves and people would take little foods or drinks and gifts to those tables so that the spirit of the ancestors might arise from the grave and have their own little party there in the cemetery.
I think it is really a universal thing the way we as humans need to have a certain connection to the past and past away relatives,
Past away ancestors.
I think all these pagan holidays that take place in October,
November around Europe and around the world in a way they all have the same hardcore people's need to understand dead really.
People's need to accept dead as part of the natural world and this is something that many other religions despite because there is faith that people's soul goes somewhere else and not that it is a constant cycle and it is natural part of life.
So many of these October,
November festivals that were really about dead and harvest.
Not just dead of people but dead in nature.
Celebrating the harvest and end of the harvest.
There's this idea that we as human beings we do not leave our families or friends after we pass away.
We always come back to those people who we care about and also that we are part of the nature.
So we don't really go anywhere from nature.
We just reborn again into the nature or part of us is reborn again to the nature and I think that is profoundly beautiful.
Thank you so much for watching guys and if you want to hear more about Baltic pagan holidays just let me know and I will continue my research because I found them really interesting and be sure to check my videos about Finnish pagan holidays.
All of you who celebrate Bellines,
Very happy Bellines.
I hope you have a lovely time wherever you are.
Take care.
Moi moi!
