The "Ploughman" in Dracula?s Castle
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A traditional cultural event was organized in Bran Castle ? Dracula?s Castle. This made the tourists visiting the castle dumbfounded. WhyĂ Because at a certain moment, the folk ensemble from Venetia de Sus, Brasov County, entered the castle with the "Ploughman" custom, a group of young boys and girls, all dressed in original costumes specific to the region with fiddlers and baskets with good food. After they enter the interior yard of the castle, they presented the "Ploughman" custom, helped by women, danced and offered "plum brandy" and cookies to tourists.
The "Ploughman" custom
After 15 years, the community in Venetia de Sus recomposed a custom specific to Tara Fagarasului, the "Ploughman", an annual ritual scenario regarding the death and re-birth of the vegetal divinity. The main role belongs to the young man who first ploughed that year. This is an agrarian folk event. All the people in the village participate and it is organized each and every year the second Easter day in several villages in the ethnographic region of Tara Fagarasului: Cuciulata, Vad, Venetia de Sus and Venetia de Jos and in the region of Tara Oltului.
The ploughman looked for in the Castle
In Bran Castle?s yard, the ceremony of the "Ploughman" custom started with a playful moment: the young men looked for the lad hidden in the castle and the harrow he had to be put onto. After they found him, he was fit in "borte", respectively in vegetal wreaths and then he was put up in a harrow and carried by the young men on their shoulders. The young man threw wheat berries from the harrow, as a sign of richness. In the end of the ceremony, the folk group came down from the castle and the Ploughman was taken by the young men on their shoulders till the margin of a river. He is usually thrown into the water, from where he starts splashing the people on the margin. The suite then goes back to the Ploughman?s house.
Traditional exhibition
"Bran Castle is promoting and keeps the flame of customs alive and makes the stories of Brasov known. We are now having the exhibition with re-composition of traditional customs the "Ploughman" - Venetia de Sus and "Fowl shooting" - Apata, as well as a photo room of the photographer from Brasov, Marco Algasovschi. We organize such events all along the year, supported by the Traditional Culture Service within the Cultural Centre "Reduta" Brasov". declared Bogdana Balmus, Bran Castle PR Manager.
