Our ancestors believed that the long hair of girls and women served as a talisman and storehouse of bright energies. Each woman cherished and was proud of her hair, for fear that a dashing person would not take possession of a single hair. After all, he who holds a lock of hair in his hand also holds the fate of its owner. Girls with long hair were considered beautiful, their braids were valued above any trinkets.
Braid weaving among different Slavic peoples
Faith directed women not to cut their hair. But everything is not as simple as it might seem at first glance: the hairstyles of our great-great-grandmothers are deeply symbolic. For example, it was customary for little girls to cut their hair, and only by the age of twelve would they begin to weave their first pigtail. They had to walk with such a hairstyle for several years, but it symbolized the fact that the girl on marriageable age. Those who didn’t find their soul mate (old maidens) walked with one scythe. But before the marriage, the hair was divided in two: two spouses - and pigtails now too. The ritual of braiding the braids was accompanied by the change of children's wardrobe to an adult - more chaste, closed, decorated with female charms. In various regions of Russia, when combing, special attributes were used, proverbs and jokes were invented. For example, in Zaonezhye, girls had long hair braided into a braid along with a ribbon - a symbol of readiness for marriage. And the Belarusians condemned: "Casa is a chanting beauty." The Bulgarians, on the other hand, smeared the girls' long hair with grape juice, and only after that they began to weave, whispering: “The vine grows, grows and the scythe” (“The vine grows, the scythe grows”). Serbs and Croats smeared the braids with the fat of snakes so that they grew as long as snakes.
Scythe in folklore
Of course, folklore did not ignore the girl’s braid. Many proverbs about hair have survived to this day. For example, the translation of the phrase "Spit Braid" is found in almost all
languages of the Slavic group. This phrase refers to the girl's gatherings before the wedding. But the mocking saying "Fuck with a scythe" could stick to the one who stayed in the girls and, therefore, did not divide the hair in two. Long-haired beauties found their reflection in painting. The famous Russian artist Boris Olshansky portrays beautiful ancient goddesses with loose hair or luxurious braids. He also writes mere mortals, imitating the image of celestial women. Andrei Ramnev portrayed later, already Christian rituals associated with weaving in the paintings. For example, his famous "Braid Separation" shows how the girls had long hair cut in half parted on the eve of the wedding. And Vasilievskaya, the fair-haired Mermaid, is perhaps famous throughout the world as a symbol of the mythology of the ancient Slavs. No less famous was Vasnetsovskaya Alyonushka, fiddling with a red braid in anticipation of an unlucky brother on the shore. And modern artists are inspired by long-haired girls. Photos with long and loose hair, with braids and high hairstyles can be found in the works of many modern photographers. Folk music performers did not ignore the braid: Khelavisa
(group "Mill"), Pelageya, Masha Arkhipova
(group "Arkona"). Indeed, today, as in antiquity, a braid is the main decoration of every girl.