Wood Spoon - Fair of the Twenty

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On the 20th of January, in Vila do Conde, it has become well knowned the Fair of the Twenty or also called Fair of the Boyfriends, with origin in the XVIII Century.
It ordered the tradition that youngsters (boys and girls) wrote one square of love in a wood spoon, and decorated it. It was with them that they played, shooting them ones to the others.
When a youngster “catrapiscava” (was flashed on) some girl, he had to decorate a wood spoon of special form, and, in it, write a short peom. If the girl accepted… good signal, was signal of being in love. (1)
The wood spoons with the rhymes of love enrolled had quickly become the products most selled and, in many cases, had helped to make solid passions and to make marriages.
People of all the region looked its luck in the great fair of Vila do Conde, in an environment always livened up by Galician flutes and where did not lack many places where to console the stomachs with bread, figs and wine.
Nowadyas, the fair lost a some of its statute of "planting of loving hearts", but oldest still remember the times where they two had made the preamble of a life there.
Also in the direction of feeding the loving aurea of this fair, it is the intention to make this day, like one Valentine’s Day anticipated. So, the autarchy, promoter of the event, has come to invite the schools of the area to preserve the tradition.(2)
Today the schools are the ones who animate this fair and, in each 20th January, they appear dressed to the time and with stuffed hampers of wood spoons that remember other times.

Poem on the TB:

Que lindos olhos tens
Um profundo azul céu
Dentro deles o coração
Que sonho juntar ao meu

Other poems:

O meu amor conheci
Na Feira dos Namorados
Olhei para ele e sorri
E saímos abraçados!

O amor é um feitiço
Que ataca o meu coração
Deixa o meu olhar mortiço
E enche-me de paixão.

No fundo do mar achei
Paixão outrora perdida.
Tanto por ela esperei!
Meu ser ganhou nova vida.

(1) Passo a Passo BLOG [http://passoapasso.weblog.com.pt/arquivo/cat_recantos_de_portugal_festas.html]
(2) Agência Lusa [http://ww1.rtp.pt/noticias/index.php?article=218648&visual=26]