Saint John the Baptist in Croatian Traditional Heritage

St John the Baptist was Jesus’s predecessor and Baptist, and he is exceptionally revered in Christianity. John the Baptist was born half a year before Jesus. The Christmas Eve, St George (April 23rd) and St John the Baptist (June 24th) feast days are the richest days in a folklore sense in Croatian people. In the traditional Croatian heritage, as well as in the traditional culture of other nations in Europe and other parts of the world, various customs, processions, divinations, beliefs, pilgrimages, corteges, holy masses, folk celebrations, fairs, songs and prayers are related to the Feast of St John the Baptist. In Croats and Europe in general, it is customary to make bonfires in the dusk of the eve of St. John the Baptist feast day. As part of an ancient custom, a boy and a girl jump over the flames of a bonfire while holding their hands, but young people also do it individually. That custom has a cleansing and an apotropaic function. Alongside bonfires, bakljars, mašalanje and lilanje are also part of St John fires (ivanjske vatre) in the traditional Croatian heritage. An ancient belief is that witches, succubi and other demonic creatures are unable to act from as far as St John’s fire can be seen and as far as its smoke spreads. Processions of krijesovalje (krisnice, ladarice), walking over the ashes of bonfires, washing and bathing in springs, rivers and sea all happen before sunrise in the morning of the Feast Day of St John the Baptist. Houses, yards, and gates were once decorated for St. John, the Baptist feast and women and girls, used to bring out their clothes and cloth so that the sunshine would shine over them and protect them from moths. Love divinations, as well as divinations about who among the household members was to die first, are related to the St John the Baptist feast day. In honour of St John, people fast, make vows and on the feast day many go barefoot on pilgrimages to shrines devoted to St John, circle the shrine or the statue of St John, the Baptist on their knees, praying for the cure for their physical and mental pains. Folk celebrations are traditionally organized after the procession and the holy mass. People sing oral lyrical poems and say prayers to St John the Baptist.