According to the people's idea the sun starts to die slowly and the year comes to the winter: "Enjo put on his coat to go get the snow". It is believed that the man that sees the bathed in live water "playing" and "trembling" sun will be healthy during the whole year. Everybody watches at their shadows, if the head does not outline or only half of it outlines this portends a disease.
      At the night of the dieing and the newly-born sun the grass and the herbs have the biggest healing power which is lost with the sunrise. That is why on that day early in the morning lasses and women, fortune-tellers, sorceress and witches pick herbs that they use for healing and magic during the whole year.
      At that night water has magic power too. According to the belief on this day the water in the rivers and the wells is healing because the sun bathed in it. In Western Bulgaria they believe in the healing power of the dew on Enjovden. At the night before Enjovden the roaming magicians, naked and sitting on a yarn-beam, wander other people's fields and while casting spells they put the dew in their aprons to drop it later over their fields.
      Before the holiday every landlord harvests a few еаr of corn so that the roamers find it picked. On the holiday young women go to the fields to harvest a wisp, they braid a tress from the corn and put it and the wisp on a cross which is done for fertility.
      On Enjovden they make predictions about health, marriage and fertility. These predictions are included in the singing competition over a ring or a bunch of flowers which resembles the laduvane. In South and Northeastern Bulgaria the predictions аre carried out in the ritual Enjova boulja (Midsummer's Day bride).

      Enjova boulja (Midsummer's Day bride): Before the holiday each lass prepares a wreath (or one for each member of the family) and puts them in a caldron with silent water. The caldron is covered with an apron and is left over the night "under the stars", under a rose bush. In the morning the lasses prepare the Enjova boulja (a four or five year old girl dressed in wedding clothes with e red veil and decorations on the head). The whole group goes around the village and the lasses carry one after another the Enjova boulja. They stop by every well or spring, they go around the field, the gardens, the cattle sheds while they are singing songs about fertility and love. During the whole procession the Enjova boulja is waiving her hands, imitating flying. People ask her questions about the future harvest and the random answers are considered as predictions. After the tout around the village the group goes back to the house where they have left the caldron. The lasses sing prediction songs there. If the singing competition is only over the lasses' bunch of flowers the predictions are about weddings and if there are bunches of flowers for everyone the predictions are about health and fertility.

     You can find more pictures from Enjovden in picture gallery .

      Church Holiday: The birth of St. John the Baptist.