[2] In the 16th century in Central and Eastern Europe it gained a Christian character and started to be organised by the landed gentry and more affluent peasants as a means to thank the reapers and their families for their work, both during the harvest and during the past year.

[3] The women would then turn it into a wreath and offer it to the guest of honour (usually the organiser of the celebration: a local noble, the richest farmer in the village or – in modern times – the wójt or other representative of the authorities).

In Poland, where the tradition survived to modern times, the feast and accompanying rituals are known under a variety of names depending on the region.

[6] Among the offerings to the god Svetovid was a large, human-sized pancake made of newly threshed grain from that year's harvest.

[6] Apparently a wreath made of the last straws left on the field at the end of the harvest was also believed to possess magical powers.

[7] The wreath is a central feature of most celebrations associated with dożynki, as it symbolises a rich harvest, the prospect of wealth and the power of new life vested in the grain gathered during the Summer.

[1] After 1945, dożynki in the Polish People's Republic took on a more political character and were used for propaganda efforts to highlight the strength of the workers' and peasants' alliance, but folk customs remained an integral part of these celebrations; in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, authorities restored the more religious meaning of the festival that was present in Interwar Poland while upholding the usual folk traditions.

[1] In present-day Poland, a nationwide "Presidential Harvest Festival" (Dożynki Prezydenckie) has been intermittently observed since its creation in 1927 by president Ignacy Mościcki in Spała.

[11] Modern celebrations of dożynki can have a religious or secular character, but they always involve observing traditional customs associated with the end of the harvest season.