If we could peer into the future to see what next year may bring, would we really want to know? Soon we say good-bye to this year and greet a new year, but thinking back to this strange year that started with the Artic Blast and is ending in parched ground, who would have wanted to foresee these events?
A centuries-old new year’s tradition of Eurasian countries known as an Onion Calendar is used to predict rain in months of the coming year. Several countries have versions, but in each are two constants: an onion and always on December 31st.
A bit of trivia: The 31st of December has been the last day of the year when, in 17th-century Hungary it was called Szilveszter, after Pope Sylvester I, the beginning of the Onion Calendar on New Year’s Eve (puszta.com).
This is the Hungarian version of the Onion Calendar: the evening of December 31 an onion is cut into twelve sections. From each section one skin is detached and covered with salt. The twelve onion skins are laid on the shoulder of a beehive oven, each onion skin symbolizing a month of the new year. The next morning skins are inspected, and the skin or skins on which the salt dissolves predict rain for that month.
The Russian Onion Calendar uses an onion cut into two halves, from center top to basal plate. Halves are separated into 12 cups and lined in order; a teaspoon of salt is placed into each onion cup. In the morning onion cups are checked; those with water will be wet months, those without, dry.
A third version: Cut tops off twelve onions between 11 p.m. and midnight on New Year’s Eve. Inner scales are scooped out, creating wells, and laid east to west; in each well equal amounts of salt are added. New Year’s Day morning, onions are checked for dissolved salt and those with the most moisture are predictors of months with high moisture.
The underlying principle of each Onion Calendar is that salt placed onto onion tissues draws water from cells by osmosis and collects in the scale as moisture.
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if the salt in every onion skin dissolved, leaving behind moisture, accurately predicting rain in 2022!
Calendars from Nature Almanac
Ellen Peffley Harp, a retired professor of horticulture at Texas Tech University, writes about gardening for several Texas newspapers.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.
