Iskrica 3

Iskrica3.latest.mp3

Commentary on the text:

When the investigator’s words are transcribed in brackets, it means they do not appear on the audio but are rather reconstructed to recreate the sense of the original conversation. These words appear in English translation only in Glossed View, in both English and Bulgarian in Line View, and in Bulgarian only in Cyrillic Line View

Main menu

You are here

Map

Participants

KK

c

d

Iskrica 3

1 (KK) Tell me about your life, from childhood onwards.

2 (c) [0:03] From childhood – what to tell you? We were many brothers,

3 (c) [0:05] five brothers and two sisters: seven “chunks”. I was the youngest.

4 (c) [0:11] As it turned out, I’m alone [now]; all of them have already departed this world.

5 (c) [0:17] I went to school, and really wanted to learn. But back then it was like this:

6 (c) [0:22] one brother does the plowing, another did other jobs, and yet another

7 (c) [0:28] pastured the sheep. And when I got back from school it was my turn

8 (c) [0:35] to go [help] gather up the ewes, the mothers of suckling lambs. That’s how it was then.

9 (c) [0:42] They didn’t wait till evening for [the ewes] to come, rather it was in the afternoon,

10 (c) [0:46] around two or three o’clock that they must come, so the lambs wouldn’t get too hungry.

11 (c) [0:50] We collect them, and drive them to the village – just the mothers that are suckling lambs.

12 (c) [0:55] Then we take them back to the meadow near our village –

13 (c) [0:59] we live at the edge of the village – and the lambs graze together with their mothers.

14 (c) [1:05] They graze until it gets dark, and when the others come we [all] go home.

15 (c) [1:09] That was one thing I did, working as a shepherd. So later when I finished –

16 (c) [1:13] I finished seventh grade, and there was nowhere to go, nothing to do,

17 (c) [1:18] nobody to support me to study anything further.

18 (c) [1:21] And I was really keen on sheep. I liked animals a lot, in fact.

19 (c) [1:29] I liked not only sheep but all animals, a lot. And I began

20 (c) [1:29] to pasture sheep. I pastured ours, and the neighbors’, and those of some others.

21 (c) [1:37] Not just ours then. So we pastured them.

22 (c) [1:44] What can I tell you – later they made for me, up in the fields, this –

23 (c) [1:53] “saya” (sheepfold), as we call it. A “kushara” (sheepfold), yes – a “kushara”.

24 (c) [1:56] And in the spring, when the weather turns to spring, you’re up at the sheepfold,

25 (c) [2:02] and pasture the sheep there. They bring me up bread to eat.

26 (c) [2:06] [I’m] not in the village at all, only when I go to change clothes or such,

27 (c) [2:08] or when there’s some occasion such as Easter or St. George’s Day.

28 (c) [2:12] Then one of my older brothers would come – they were all married,

29 (c) [2:14] I was the youngest and was unmarried – to take my place

30 (c) [2:19] so I could go down to the village to feast my eyes on the girls! [laughter]

31 (KK) [How do you look after sheep?]

32 (c) [2:24] In the old days we kept them separate from the rams. The rams were kept apart

33 (c) [2:29] until St. Petko’s Day. St. Petko’s Day is on October 27th.

34 (c) [2:34] Then we allow the sheep to breed so they will get pregnant,

35 (c) [3:38] so they will lamb on the twenty-second of February – I mean March.

36 (c) [2:42] When it’s warm. Earlier than that [it’s] cold, and the lambs can’t grow –

37 (c) [2:48] you need good conditions. So I breed them. After the sheep are impregnated,

38 (c) [2:57] [they carry it] throughout the winter, and then begin to lamb on March 22nd.

39 (c) [3:01] They begin to lamb, and we’re up at the sheepfold. We take them there

40 (c) [3:06] and pasture the sheep and lambs. They bring us bread there and take [stuff] back.

41 (c) [3:14] On Christmas and St. George’s Day we slaughter lambs, that was the rule then

42 (c) [3:18] for villagers. The best lamb would be for St. George’s day. They’d come up:

43 (c) [3:23] my older brothers would get [the lamb]. They then take it [down],

44 (c) [3:28] they slaughter it and prepare it. People roasted lambs whole in the outdoor oven –

45 (c) [3:31] there were these village ovens that several neighbors would share –

46 (c) [3:37] and they stuff the lamb after they skinned it, only removing the entrails.

47 (c) [3:42] They fill the other [parts] with rice and different things,

48 (c) [3:46] with leeks, or whatever they had, to put in there.

49 (c) [3:49] Then they sew it up again, and put it in the oven to roast.

50 (c) [3:53] On St. George’s Day we’d gather, the entire village, on the village square.

51 (c) [4:03] There’s a big square where the entire village gathers. They bring in the lambs –

52 (c) [4:03] they bring the entire lamb roasts there, and the priest comes by to bless them.

53 (c) [4:08] He blesses them one after another, sprinkles them [with holy water] and blesses them,

54 (c) [4:12] and everyone gives a piece [of his lamb] to the priest.

55 (c) [4:16] So when the priest comes and blesses the lambs

56 (c) [4:19] each one gives a piece to the priest,

57 (c) [4:23] then all the others start to eat, and the revelry begins.

58 (c) [4:29] Musicians play, people dance the round dance. There wasn’t [any of] today’s dancing,

59 (c) [4:35] these fancy dance things they do [now]. Only round dance, rŭchenitsa, line dances.

60 (c) [4:39] That’s how they danced in the old days. Till evening – this revelry

61 (c) [4:43] went on till evening, and then everyone went home, each to his house.

62 (KK) [And what kind of a holiday was St. George’s Day?]

63 (c) [4:48] Well, when they celebrate St. George’s Day, it’s shepherds –

64 (c) [4:52] it’s really the holiday of shepherds, but now they’ve dressed it up as

65 (c) [4:56] this “holiday of St. George”. People gather together,

66 (c) [5:02] they eat and drink and dance the round dance and rŭchenitsa until evening,

67 (c) [5:08] and when it gets dark everyone goes home because they didn’t have this night life then,

68 (c) [5:11] [like now] when young people go out all night. There weren’t such things then.

69 (c) [5:14] Everybody went home.

70 (KK) [What do you do when lambs begin to be born?]

71 (c) [5:16] When the ewes start to lamb, I know for each one of them more or less

72 (c) [5:20] the date when it was bred, and thus the day it should lamb.