This custom is practiced at Velika Hoča on the third day of Easter. It belongs to the domain of societal customs, rituals and celebration events.
Bela vila (White fairy) is a custom practiced at Velika Hoča on the third day of Easter, as an integral part of a composite complex of customary rituals performed in this town for the occasion of Eastern. It includes two parts – a performance play symbolizing hunting of wild horses and a play of “building the town”. The first part of the ritual presents about a dozen “hunters” who use young leafy branches, about 3 m long, to “catch” about two dozen “wild horses” and bring them to the “market”, i.e. the place where they would be supposedly sold to the “buyers”. In the second part of the play, the young men make a circular formation of two rows of participants, upper and lower, “building the town”. Once the “town is built”, the participants of said formation sing the song Bela vila grad gradila (“White fairy built a town”).
