Blatian Festival of Spring

Also known as the Pomptemenas, " Festival of the 5th month" in Ikarian and Blatian, because this is when the festival is celebrated since at least the 5th century BP. It symbolically marks the welcoming of the warm months and the flowering of trees and plants.   This festival is typical of the north-western regions of the Empire, close to the border with Oronia and might have its roots in ancient kallian festivals held before the Ikarian conquests of the Kallian plains.  

Origins

The festival as we know it was first performed in 887 BP in Ikaria. It is said that various Kallian princes were invited to take part in the festival and that "they were very familiar with the rites" suggesting this festival was also celebrated by the Kallians, and might also have been celebrated by the other Davidovian peoples. At first, the celebration didn't have a fixed date rather it was determined by the priest of the goddess Tyr, the goddess of Nature. This changed with the reform of the calendar of festivities by Emperor Decentius I in 449 BP, when the festival date was set on the 1st of the fifth month.   The celebrations enjoyed a lot of popularity across the Empire but it seems to to decline and cease to be celebrated in some parts of the Empire from the end of the 4th century onwards. They remained only in the northwest of the country, in the regions close to Oronia, and in the regions of the Old South, especially in the coastal regions.

Welcoming Spring

The main purpose of the festival is to exalt nature and celebrate the beginning of spring.During the festivities, performances, dances, and songs are held around the Pompoles, structures traditionally inspired by tree figures but now taking on more varied forms, decorated with flowers, leaves, and fruits. These figures consist of a frame or skeleton of conical or pyramidal poles or planks, covered in fabric, which is then covered with mofo, fennel, or grass. The frame is built on a platform that, like a stretcher, allows the figure to be transported through the streets of the place. Various motifs are drawn on this structure, including flowers, leaves, fennel, ferns, buglosses, fruits, or even eggs.   In the countryside there is also another element of the festival, and that is the so called Spring girl, usually a girl between the ages of 5 and 15, chosen by lottery from among the villagers, wears a tunic decorated with fresh or painted flowers and a flower crown. She is taken in a float or cart to the square or the place where the figures are located. During the procession, she throws candy to the other villagers and, upon reaching the square, begins to dance in front of the figure. The villagers dance around her and the Pompole. It is believed that this girl is an allegory of spring or of the goddess herself, and her choice meant that the goddess would bless that person that year and that he or she would have a happy marriage in the future (since marriages in the Ikarian-Blatian world are usually celebrated in spring-summer).   Another variation of the festival is found in some towns around Bovoria, where young people cut down a tree, the biggest they can, and plant it in the middle of the main square, later decorating it with lanterns. There is also the custom of placing broom branches on the doors of the house and stables, on windows, cars, farms and boats in the evening of the day before the festival so that the new month begins with the house, the people who live in it and their properties protected by the gods.