The paper describes the relevance of the winter custom of "beating day" (celebrated on 28th December) in the heterogeneous border area of Koroška/Carinthia, in the Mežica Valley and Podjuna. Through spoken questioning, information was obtained as to whether children are still "beaten", what shape the day of "innocent children" takes and, above all, which sayings are still used. It should be emphasised that, in spite of the older generation having a great influence on the preservation of local dialect and old customs, knowledge about national culture and its revival is increasingly transmitted in an organised format, in which an important role is played by nursery teachers, school teachers, cultural societies, audio-visual resources and so on.
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