The ethnographer named the reason for the search for a fern flower on Kupala night

The Eastern Slavs believed that on the night of Ivan Kupala, a fern flower could point to a treasure and grant the ability to understand the language of animals and birds. Sofia Didkovskaya, a researcher at the Department of Ethnography of the Russian People at the Russian Ethnographic Museum, told Izvestia about this.

"According to popular beliefs, on the night of Ivan Kupala, all the hidden treasures come out of the ground, and exactly at midnight, a fiery red fern flower blooms for a moment, capable of indicating the treasure and granting the ability to understand the language of animals and birds," the ethnographer explained.

In Russia as a whole, there were many Kupala traditions related to plants. For example, the Eastern Slavs sought to find two ears of corn on one stalk on the morning of Midsummer Day, as they believed that there would be golden horns with magical powers in the hole under it. It was rumored that on the night of Ivan, the gap-grass blooms, touching which gives a person the ability to unlock all locks.

Read more in the Izvestia article:

Ivan Kupala – 2026: how this mysterious holiday was actually celebrated in Russia