Celebration of the birth of Saint John and summer solstice. A service is held at the Church of Saint John in the morning, and when it was still taking place, the klidonas (κλήδονας) ritual that began the previous evening was completed. At sunrise, the young women who had collected the water brought the vessel inside so that it would not lose the magical power that the water had collected overnight. Around noon, the women and the villagers would gather, uncover the fabric, and take out the objects inside. As each object was removed, a person from the group, inspired by the object, made up a mantinada, a type of Cretan folk poem composed of rhyming couplets, about the object. They also sang this song to celebrate the young woman who was chosen to remove the items from the pot:
We open the lock of klidona
with Saint John’s blessing.
Child with good fortune
sit down and take them all out.
Whoever has good fortune today,
may they receive it.
The women then took the pot to the nearest well, which also had been covered with a red cloth from the previous night. They took turns pouring water from the pitcher into the well. As they lifted the red cloth and poured in the water, images surfaced from the ripples of the water. Each woman would look carefully, trying to interpret these images, which were seen as faces of the men they would marry.
