Most charming and most picturesque of festivals is that participated in by the romantic Armenian maidens on the early dawn of Ascension Day.[18] On the eve of the same day the young girls who wish their fortunes told, decorate a large bowl with specially selected flowers, after which each girl casts a token, a ring, a brooch, a thimble, into the bowl. Flowers of several kinds are then put in, and the bowl is filled with water drawn from seven springs. Then they cover it with an embroidered cloth and take it by night to the priest who says a prayer over it. The most carefully and daintily prepared bowl is then placed out in the moonlight, open to the stars where it is left until dawn. At early daybreak of the next morning, the maidens, furnished with provisions for the entire day, go out of the village carrying their bowl to the side of a spring, the foot of a mountain, or into an open field, gathering on the way various kinds of flowers with which they deck themselves. Having arrived at their place of festival, they play games, dance, and sing, after which they take a beautiful little girl, too young to tell where the sun rises, who has been previously chosen and gaily dressed for the occasion, to draw the various articles out of the bowl. The face of the child is covered with a richly wrought veil that she may not see what is in the bowl, and she then proceeds to withdraw the articles which she holds in her hand one at a time. While this is done some one of the party recites a charm song, and the owner of each token takes the song which accompanies it as her fortune. There are thousands of these charm songs, most of which have been written especially for the festival, of which I shall give but a few.
1.
Snowless hang the clouds to-night,
Through the darkness comes a light;
On this lonely pillow now,
Never more shall sleep alight.
2.
Like a star whose brightness grows
On the earth my beauty shows;
Thou shalt long for yet, and seek