Sacred Spring, Primavera sacra, is an Italian spring festival centered around conquest and fighting, which had to be paused during the winter. This was driven by overpopulation and the resulting emigration and settling in new territories. The entire ritual is dedicated to the Roman god of war, Mars.
Sacred animals such as the wolf and the bull served as totem guardians of those emigrants ready to conquer. Since 1999, a procession has been held in Bojano, Italy, to commemorate this event. It reenacts the migration of 7,000 young people from Sabina to Sannio during the Primavera sacra.
And now to another time on another continent: Wing Chun (Mandarin: Yǒng Chūn Quán 咏春拳), often translated as „Spring Song“ or erroneously as „eternal spring“, is a Chinese martial art with a relatively young history.
According to legend, it either dates back to a woman of the same name who lived two hundred years ago – or was the battle cry of those who wanted to overthrow the Manchu dynasty and restore the old Ming dynasty. Here too, spring is associated with fighting.
And that is what is fascinating.