The Spring Princess

The Spring Princess is a common ritual performed in many rural areas on the Alluvial plain to the south of the Eleven Cities. A major component of the spring festivals common in those communities, it is also viewed as a coming-of-age ritual for the young women who are its principle participants.

Procedure

Prevalence

Rural spring and harvest festivals are noted by researchers for their heterogeneity; though the large majority of the scores of essentially self-governing rural villages on the plain conduct such festivals, no two communities appear to do so in precisely the same way. The Spring Princess is among the more common components of these festivals, however, occurring in perhaps two-thirds of all villages.

Practice

The ritual of the Spring Princess is conducted in close relation to the communal banquets that serve as the public centrepieces of most spring festivals. In some places the ritual is performed at the commencement of the banquet and must be completed before anyone can begin eating, while in others it serves as a climax to the feast, performed immediately before or during the serving of the fruit pies that traditionally serve as desserts at these events.
One of the unmarried women of the village is chosen to be the Spring Princess. In villages where a mummer performs the role of Father Han, that person generally makes the choice, typically from among the adolescents who have been participating in the folk dancing over the morning of the feast day. Some communities make this an organised competition and expect Father Han to make his choice with reference to specific traditional dances. Father Han usually makes the decision unilaterally; in other communities he may be lobbied by the unmarried men of the village. In communities where Father Han is not present, the princess is chosen by general debate among the young men, with the women (including the possible candidates) and the married folk of the village hustling this debate along if it is seen to be taking too long.
The princess is adorned with garlands and (in some cases) required to change into a clean white dress. If Father Han is present, he will then place a garland of spring flowers around her neck and a wreath of the same on her head; she is then typically seated on his lap at the head of the banquet table. If the village does not employ Father Han then a secular worthy of the community will seat her on a char at the head of the table and apply the garlands and wreaths.
Regardless of who is conducting the ceremony, the princess is then presented with a vessel of drink flavoured with spring fruits. In most places burdock or dandelion tea is used, though communities where currants, raspberries or gooseberries are grown these fruits are sometimes employed in this capacity. Some researchers have noted that some communities attach great importance to the colour of the drink, insisting it be red and sometimes going so far as to dye it with ochre or beetroot juice, while others seem to demand that the drink be served in a particularly-shaped vessel, usually a broad shallow bowl. In most places the drink will be laced with an additional component - usually a sweetening agent such as honey or a shot of additional fruit flavouring - as the princess holds it.
The princess pronounces a blessing on her community for the coming summer, then consumes the drink. Typically she is expected to drain the vessel in one go, often without spilling any (this, it is speculated, is why she must wear white in some places - to ensure any spillage is clearly visible in the form of stains on her clothing) and this endeavor is undertaken to cries of encouragement or skepticism from the assembled spectators. Should she somehow fail, it is often superstitiously suggested, her community will suffer some noteworthy misfortune in the coming year. When she drains her drink, however, she receives a round of applause and cheers from her community, and the feasting either begins or moves onto a new phase with the serving of the pies.

Post factum ramifications

Until the following winter the Spring Princess enjoys considerable standing in her community. Occupying a position of seniority among the other women her age, she is considered highly eligible for marriage and the unmarried men of the community are likely to clamour for her attention. It is thus rare, and often seen as a bad omen, if the Princess does not marry during her tenure.
In some places she is also expected to serve as matchmaker during her tenure, suggesting marriages and other liaisons with the men among the unmarried women of the community. Exactly how much authority she has in this regard varies; in some places she will actively arrange marriages while in others she will simply make suggestions.
Once a young girl has presented herself as a candidate for Spring Princess, she is generally considered to have left girlhood behind and to have signaled her readiness for marriage. She may present herself (or be presented) for as many years as she remain unmarried, but there is no recorded instance of anyone ever being crowned as Spring Princess more than once.

Research

The ritual was first observed by the folklorist Margyas Maray, who celebrated it as a traditional equation of the fertility of the land with that of the human community. To celebrate the re-invigoration of the land, Maray suggests, the local priest of Dahan selected one of the marriageable girls of the community to oversee the utilisation of human fertility. With the effective disbanding of the Boles of Dahan during the Wesmodian Reformation, this role passed to Father Han, bespeaking the resonance of the rites of the god within farming communities.
Qroyatan Medys takes issue with Maray's conclusions, arguing instead that the ritual commemorates a rather darker aspect of nature-worship. Having concluded that the megalithic sites associated with the worship of Dahan were not used for human sacrifices (as was long supposed by scholars, including Wesmod, he argues that the ritual of the Spring Princess in fact rehearses a ritual of Dahan in which a biologically viable woman from a community was sacrificed to ensure a bountiful growing season over the coming spring and summer. The ceremonial drink, he argues was once poisoned, probably with hemlock, by the local priest of Dahan, which explains the addition of more ingredients to it than were consumed by the general populace. This was done publicly, he argues, to re-enforce the authority of the Boles of Dahan.
Both the Green Circle and the Ivied Ones have taken to conducting the ritual of the Spring Princess as part of their efforts to reconstruct the worship of Dahan. Among the Green Circle there is a definite opinion that Maray's interpretation is the correct one, though what the Ivies think is not something they have yet made public.