TRADITIONAL GAMES IN ESTONIA
TRADITIONAL GAMES IN ESTONIA

Summary/Abstract: Estonians have been farmers through centuries. Due to this, hard farm work has been an essential part of their everyday lives since childhood and little time has been left for entertainment. In spite of that, Estonians have preserved a rich selection of traditional games often played even nowadays. The fact that games have continued to exist so long can be explained by their connection with traditional holidays in the folk calendar. Traditional holidays were the same from year to year and so were the traditional customs observed on certain days, e. g. straw was brought in at Christmas, fire was made on Midsummer Day, sliding downhill was connected with Shrove Tuesday, etc. Observing these traditions helped to preserve the games connected with them. At the beginning of this century when some of the old customs started to die out, many of the games were forgotten as well. However, there have been people in Estonia who popularised these games.

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