Romanian folk poetry

thumb|Obverse and reverse|Reverse of a commemorative 50 [[Moldovan lei coin dedicated to Miorița|alt=A coin face featuring a shepherd sitting on the ground playing a flute. A sheep looks up to a round astral object in the sky. A curved line on the background suggests a mountain range. The word MIORIȚA in an archaic print type follows the curve of the coin edge.]] "Miorița" (ad. mioriță, lit. 'The Little Ewe Lamb'), also transliterated as "Mioritza", is an old Romanian pastoral ballad considered to be one of the most important pieces of Romanian folklore. It has numerous versions with quite dif

mythological figure

Caloian (also Calian(i), Caloiță, Scaloian, Gherman, or Iene) was a rainmaking and fertility rite in Romania, similar in some ways to Dodola. Its namesake is a clay effigy, whose sculpting, funeral, exhumation, and eventual destruction are centerpieces of the display. The source of this ritual, as is the case with those of many other local popular beliefs and practices, precedes the introduction of Christianity, although it came in time to be associated with Orthodox Easter or with the Feast of the Ascension. In some variants it was performed on a precisely calculated day two to three weeks af