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Cherwell’s Cultural Easter Egg

Christianity vs. Paganism

The Cybele cult is the original Spring festival, brought to Rome in 204 BC straight to the site which is now Vatican hill. Cybele’s lover Attis is a striking Jesus parallel – born of a virgin and re-born anually. Today, almost all of the traditions we associate with Easter – from eggs to bunnies – are a mix of the Pagan traditions to welcome in the Spring, and the Christian resurrection story. In another Pagan twist, the date of Easter is different every year – determined by the phases of the moon. The Bible states that this is because Jesus’ death and resurrection happened at the same time as the Jewish Passover, which was on the first full moon following the equinox. 

Ä’ostre

The Modern English name ‘Easter’ comes from the Old English ‘Ä’ostre’ or ‘Ä’astre’, who was a Germanic Pagan Goddess. The name derives from proto-Germanic ‘austrōn’ meaning ‘dawn’, fitting with Easter and Spring imagery of new beginnings. There has also been speculaton that Ä’ostre was a pre-christian fertility Goddess because of the Easter motifs of eggs and new birth, and also that her symbol was a rabbit or hare – possibly giving us the Easter Bunny. However, there is some debate as to whether or not she was made up by The Venerable Bede, who wrote about in his 725 text The Reckoning of Time (De temporum ratione) that: ‘Eosturmonath (‘Easter month’)… was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ä’ostre’.

Semana Santa de Sevilla

The week before Easter is known in Christianity as ‘Holy Week’, and includes Friday of Passion, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. A good place to experience the full ritual involved in the celebration of Holy Weeks is Seville in the South of Spain, where the residents celebrate with the precession of pasos – floats of wooden sculptures of scenes of the events of the Passion, or images of the Virgin Mary, accompanied by brass bands. During Holy Week the city is crowded with both residents and visitors drawn by the spectacle. The origins of Semana Santa de Sevilla are believed to date back to the Late Middle Ages.

Witches and Bonfires

As in many countries, Easter traditions in Finland mix religious motifs with customs welcoming the arrival of Spring. In a strange Halloween crossover, Finnish children traditionally go begging in the streets with sooty faces and scarves around their heads, carrying broomsticks, coffee pots and bunches of willow twigs. This mixes the Russian Orthodox tradition of birch leaves representing the palms laid down when Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday with the willow being the first tree to bloom in the spring. In some parts of Western Finland, people burn bonfires on Easter Sunday – an old Nordic tradition stemming from the belief that flames ward off witches, who fly around on brooms between good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Påskekrim

In Norway, Easter (‘Påske’, derived from the Hebrew word for ‘Passover’) is a colourful festival celebrating the arrival of Spring after the long darkness of winter. Bizarrely, aside from the traditional celebrations, Easter in Norway is marked by the reading of crime and detective novels. Each year, ‘Påskekrim’ or ‘Easter Thrillers’ appear in bookshops and on the television or radio – a tradition believed to have started in 1923 with the publishing of advertisements for the new crime novel of Nordahl Grieg and Nils Lie.

French Omelette

If you are near Southern French town of Haux in Northern France on Easter Monday, take a spoon with you. Each year, a giant omelette is served in the town’s main square. It uses more than 4,500 eggs and feeds up to 1,000 people. The story goes that when Napoleon and his army were travelling through the South of France, they stopped in the small town and ate omelettes. Napoleon liked his so much that he ordered the townspeople to gather their eggs and make a giant omelette for his army the next day.

 

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