Vestuvinių papročių pasaulis

Abstract

This is an extract from Part II of the unpublished study ’’The Semantic Features of Old Wedding Songs and Rituals” by Norbertas Vėlius. It accentuates the main elements of wedding rituals: time (it should be noted that most of the ceremonies begin early in the morning or late at night), fire (the oldest descriptions of wedding rituals attest to the fact that bonfires, lanterns and candles were used in Prussia and in Lithuania), water (water is mentioned in speeches and dialogues during various ceremonies), adornments (typical clothes of the participants of the ceremony, their means of transportation, the decoration of houses and farm-steads and building of decorative ’’gates” and ’’gardens” are discussed).