When there was no tv or web from which to get weather information, people turned to the careful observation of nature. This is how the prediction of winter was handed down for centuries, based on the seeds of the persimmon, the sweetest fruit, symbol of Autumn which grows a lot in our land, the Calabria region.
According to this ancient tradition the symbol inside the seed precisely indicates the type of winter inside the persimmon seed is a white part which takes on the resemblance of the which takes the resemblance
a fork
a knife
or a spoon
Try splitting a seed in half according to an ancient peasant tradition by the cutlery one can predict the kind of winter to come:
the fork indicates a mild winter;
the knife a bitter cold;
the spoon, a winter with plenty of snow.
In every culture there is a baggage of popular beliefs that science does not recognise.
There is no scientific evidence to support this observation, yet it is a technique that enabled farmers in the past to prepare adequately for winter, and even today, if only for fun, some people still split persimmon seeds in half to get an idea of the coming months.
In his journey man has always seen the help given to him, by nature, to complete his journey in the best possible way.
In the comments of the blog where we took this curious article a woman says that in the Abruzzo region, women used the same method to understand the gender of the baby: male if knife or fork, female if spoon.
People are excited when something from their past is still used and found roots in their ancestors’ life, also taking into consideration that we are all checking weather forecasts in our smartphones, getting disappointed because they don't get it right anymore.
Author:
Erika Gerardini - JUMP Team
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