kreling CULTURE — A rite of passage. The kreling was a → cumatu (coming-of-age rite) celebrated in the → Goth village of → Minin. Little is known of the original annual ceremony, which ended many generations back. However, what is known is one boy and one girl would be selected from the village and offered as a sacrifice during the → Hidain festival of → Sauingrey, which, due to the → gu-delak occurred on the last day of the fourth month of each year. The sacrifices are believed to have been made to the Goth gods of harvest and fertility, in particular the Dragon god, → Gothro. 

As the Skree presence and influence in Goth intensified, many inhabitants of Minin, as well as most other villages and communities in Goth, migrated to parts of → Carde and → Ausrost, taking portions of the practice of celebrating the kreling with them. Most of our knowledge of the Minin kreling comes from these small, transplanted communities and does not fully represent the original practice, having been absorbed by local traditions and beliefs. However, historians believe the following aspects of the ceremony, which seem to be consistent among all of the transplanted communities, gives insight into the original rite. In each smaller Minin communities, the chosen youths—generally of marrying age, which to the Goth could be as early as fourteen years—would be served a feast and celebrated as royalty before being taken to the highest region of the area, a hilltop for example, where they would copulate before a small tribunal of → khamun, in this case soothsayers, seers, and other community elders. It is said that following the couple’s copulation, the tribunal would determine whether the youths—now considered married—would be allowed to live out their days together or if they should be sacrificed to appease the gods. In time, the rite became associated less with the Dragon god and more with various fertility gods and used as a blessing for bountiful harvests. The human sacrificial element was, in time, replaced with baptisms symbolic of sacrifice, most often in water, but sometimes in other liquids such as wine, vinegar or even blood, or a combination of those and water. 

Vestiges of the rite, though far removed from its origins, found their way into Sauingrey celebrations throughout smaller villages and communities in Carde and Ausrost, many of which still exist to the present and are called by various names from region to region. Most still associate good fortune with finding a lover—and in particular, becoming pregnant—during the festivals of Sauingrey and/or → Lunauinbroc (due to the gu-delak) or → Tanneibel (due to the association with planting and/or harvesting).