According the tradition, the first nine days of March, called „Dochia’s Days” or „The Beldames” have a special significance in relation to the quantity of luck people will have in the new year. Tradition says that each of us must choose one day between 1 and 9 March; the weather of that day sets the humour of the entire year: beautiful, light and heat or cold and cheerless.
The weather also sets the moral character of the one who chose one specific day. The Beldames are nine not by accident; this number has magical meanings and is frequent in the moon Carpathian calendar.
Blocks of Stone
The Old Dochia legend tells about a mother-in-law not satisfied with her daughter-in-law whom she sent to the river, in winter, to wash some black wool until it becomes white.
But at the river is a young men appears; he helps the girl and turns black wool into white wool and offers the girl a red flower. The Old Dochia, seeing the flower in her daughter-in-laws hair, thinks spring has come and goes in the mountains with her herd of sheep. On the way, the weather was beautiful; Old Dochia gets hot and throws one by one its nine lamb fleeces. But when she reaches the top of the mountain, the weather suddenly deteriorates and Dochia remains frozen, with all the sheep and then becomes a block of stone. The Beldames turned into stone blocks can be seen in Bucegi Mountains but also in Ciucas Mountains, in the surroundings of Vama Buzaului, o locality within Brasov county.
