Harvest Festival

When the harvests are gathered the people of the fields give thanks and celebrate in an age-old custom called Dożynki.

On a warm Sunday in late August the tillers of the soil with their whole families walked gayly to the manor house to the music of the fiddle and the bass viol.

Heading the procession were pretty young maids in their colorful native costumes. They carried large wreaths made of the harvested rye, of wheat, intertwined with poppies and bachelor buttons. The fruit of the orchard—plums, pears and apples—was tied to the wreaths with yellow, red, blue and purple ribbons.