Hay Day
Hay Day is a Fumayan variant of the Day of Zarthus' Zenith. It falls on 20th and 21st of the Zodiac or religious calendar and the 20th and 21st of the the Hayseed on the secular or farmer's calendar.
The god Zarthus is honored on is day of greatest spiritual power, and in true Zarthus-fashion, the holiday is informal and tries to elevate the little guy, at least in Fumaya. Zarthus is the god of many things but Hay Day focuses on his roles as a promoter of freedom, music, art, and friendly competition.
The nobles will generally sponsor festivals for the common people giving out free food and sponsoring entertainment troupes to put on free shows or at least cheap shows for the masses. Even though the local lords and ladies paid the performers in advance, It is common courtesy for commoners to a toss a few coppers to shows they especially enjoyed. Freelance performers are welcome and frequently seen.
While free food the local lords give out is fairly generous, it tends to be boring staple food, often taking the forms of sacks of flour, so there are frequently many food vendors selling alchoholic drinks, roast meat, and various sweets. A lot of families will bring their own picnic or have large dinners as Hay Day is a common time for extended family members to meet and reconnect.
Components and tools
Zarthus is the god of many things but he is not the god of hay. It just so happens that Zarthus Zenith falls towards of the end of the period when the population is making and storing hay for the coming winter.
In recent years, Jelly Spear troupes troupes often converge for Hay Day and they often incorporate very crude hay filled manequins. Often which are "murdered" horribly on stage with much of the hay peoples' innards painted red for dramatic effect complete with melodramatic responses. "You killed my brother! YOU WILL PAY!"
Originally, the festival had nothing to do with hay, but "Hay Day" was an informal nickname that stuck decades ago, hay became a bigger and bigger aspect of the festival. Many of the impromptu seats for the live shows have the participates sit on hay bales as benches.
Athletic contests such as wrestling often occur on top of a pile of hay, archers shoot at targets hanging over hay, and if funds permit, the local wizards will often provide dancing scarecrow golems.
Zarthus is all about friendly competition and the Lanterns are a competitive lot and there are dozens of little contests running throughout. A few formal contests have prize money, but most of the contests are just for bragging rights and nothing concrete. A lot of them will jokingly bestow a small symbolic bag of hay to the winner.
A few localities have best livestock contests and sometimes the winners of these contests are generously donated the winning bags of hay via a farcical formal ceremony.
"One champion to another I bestow my winnings on to you Fair Lady Bessie" "MOO!" "You flatter me my lady..."Sometimes the local lord will reserve a central patch of tall grass untouched by the hay season, so the locals can have a contest who can harvest hay the fastest.
Observance
Zarthus and his followers the Lanterns are big on friendly competition and there are many competitions in art, athleticism and craftsmanship throughout the festival, but the music competitions tend to draw the largest crowds (and these contests have some actual prize money and not just hay)
Music contests are either soloist contests or Battle of the Bands or both. The winners are determined by applause and applause is sometimes hard to measure so the local lord of lady will commonly ceremonially measure the applause. They also bestow a wreath on their personal favorite whether or not it's also the crowd favorite (the true winner).
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