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Poles gear up for night of parties and fortune-telling

29.11.2019 12:11
Poles are gearing up for parties this weekend in a traditional last hurrah ahead of Advent, which is marked by Christians as a time of prayer and abstinence before Christmas.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Pixabay License

Parties will be held at clubs and reception venues across the country.

Friday night’s celebrations, an opportunity to eat, drink and dance, are commonly referred to as Andrzejki, derived from the name Andrzej (Andrew). In the Catholic Church, Saint Andrew's Day is marked on November 30.

The merrymaking is traditionally accompanied in Poland by fortune-telling, for example by dripping hot wax into a bowl of cold water and then interpreting the shapes that form.  

In former times, the wax divination was treated seriously, with unmarried girls trying to predict their matrimonial prospects.

Today, it is treated with a pinch of salt and seen as a fun activity for both sexes in a party atmosphere.

(pk/gs)

Source: PAP