Kolede

Macedonian “Kolede“ (a ’slay-day’) from “Kole“ - ’butchers, slays’, and “den“ - ’day’; it is a macabre song that describes an ancient pagan rite of animal sacrifice, which served as an offer to the god(s) at the beginning of the month. Still preserved in this ancient Macedonian song “Kolede“, that transmits the immemorial pre-Christian tradition of ’day for slaughter’ i.e. ’Kole-den’ (Slay-day) in plain Macedonian, narating the cry of the bovine calf that begs for mercy. The roots of this song are burried in the most ancient times, a distant echo of the Phrygian-Mithraic bull sacrifice (i.e. Tauroctony), the myth of Teseus and Minotaur, and the sacred bull Apis/Serapis... Today, weirdly enough, it is sang as a Xmas carol song. However, it still describes the cry of the poor calf that is about to be slain with these very words: “Tele veli lele, ne kolete mene...“ - translated in plain English: “the calf cri