Comparing our own observations with those of the other Indo-European branches can not only tell us what was shared in common by these branches, but it can also shed some more light on our own practices. Read these two accounts written by Christian scholars, who report of a cognate Western Slavic festival. Not only was it focused on harvest and the new year, it also reports of their divinatory practices by which they gained knowledge of the upcoming year.
William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England, c. 12:
“But the [Wends] [1] worship Fortune, and putting her idol in the most eminent situation, they place a horn in her right hand, filled with that beverage, made of honey and water, which by a Greek term we call “hydromel.” St. Jerome proves, in his eighteenth book on Isaiah, that the Egyptians and almost all the eastern nations do the same. Wherefore on the last day of November,[2]sitting round in a circle, they all taste it; and if they find the horn full, they applaud with loud clamors: because in the ensuing year, plenty with her brimming horn will fulfil their wishes in everything: but if it be otherwise, they lament.”
[1] The original text says Vindelici, but this seems to be a historical confusion of the name of the Wends with the Vindelici tribe and sometimes even the Vandals.
[2] The Slavic people seem to have celebrated their festivals on New Moons rather than on Full Moons like we do.
William of Malmesbury, Chronicle of the Kings of England, c. 12:
“But the [Wends] [1] worship Fortune, and putting her idol in the most eminent situation, they place a horn in her right hand, filled with that beverage, made of honey and water, which by a Greek term we call “hydromel.” St. Jerome proves, in his eighteenth book on Isaiah, that the Egyptians and almost all the eastern nations do the same. Wherefore on the last day of November,[2]sitting round in a circle, they all taste it; and if they find the horn full, they applaud with loud clamors: because in the ensuing year, plenty with her brimming horn will fulfil their wishes in everything: but if it be otherwise, they lament.”
[1] The original text says Vindelici, but this seems to be a historical confusion of the name of the Wends with the Vindelici tribe and sometimes even the Vandals.
[2] The Slavic people seem to have celebrated their festivals on New Moons rather than on Full Moons like we do.