Egg-Chandelier
An Egg at Easter:
A Folklore Study
Venetia Newall
Routledge & Kegan Paul
London 1971
423 pages of fascinating egg lore and craft. Plus some beautiful illustrations. I particularly like the photograph of the egg-chandelier made by the bachelors of Beuel-Kuedinghoven, a village near Bonn. This photo was taken in 1962 of a chandelier that contained 3,000 eggs and hung in the main street till harvest time.
Appendix I: I was particularly intrigued by the list of concoctions used to colour the eggs from around the world. Some read like fairy tales:
Hungary
yellow cow's whey mixed with alum, wolf's milk boiled in water, crab apple bark, saffron.
green hemlock.
black gall nuts.
Czechoslovakia
red crushed, burnt brick-dust soaked in water.
yellow ears of grain, crocus, apple rind.
green boiled hay, young grass or young alder.
brown plum skins, red onions.
black old alder bark, coffee essence, rusty iron boiled in cabbage water.
'The rich symbolism of an Easter egg is even used to suggest the enduring life of the spirit: Tyrolese believe a Good Friday Egg not only preserves its freshmess all the year – it will not even smash if hurled over the house-top. Wends (Sorbs), Greeks and other races all maintain that an egg boiled at Eater will never go bad; after a few years it changes into a pearl, a common emblem of the soul. In France the yolk of Green Thursday's egg becomes a diamond after 100 years.'
Another curious custom:
'Sometimes they are used as an aid for seeing the future. They may quite literally assist a child in learning to read, gathering knowledge that lies ahead. Children in Baden were given one, laid on Good Friday, before attending school the first time: letters of the alphabet were stirred into it, and all had to be eaten.'
A Folklore Study
Venetia Newall
Routledge & Kegan Paul
London 1971
423 pages of fascinating egg lore and craft. Plus some beautiful illustrations. I particularly like the photograph of the egg-chandelier made by the bachelors of Beuel-Kuedinghoven, a village near Bonn. This photo was taken in 1962 of a chandelier that contained 3,000 eggs and hung in the main street till harvest time.
Appendix I: I was particularly intrigued by the list of concoctions used to colour the eggs from around the world. Some read like fairy tales:
Hungary
yellow cow's whey mixed with alum, wolf's milk boiled in water, crab apple bark, saffron.
green hemlock.
black gall nuts.
Czechoslovakia
red crushed, burnt brick-dust soaked in water.
yellow ears of grain, crocus, apple rind.
green boiled hay, young grass or young alder.
brown plum skins, red onions.
black old alder bark, coffee essence, rusty iron boiled in cabbage water.
'The rich symbolism of an Easter egg is even used to suggest the enduring life of the spirit: Tyrolese believe a Good Friday Egg not only preserves its freshmess all the year – it will not even smash if hurled over the house-top. Wends (Sorbs), Greeks and other races all maintain that an egg boiled at Eater will never go bad; after a few years it changes into a pearl, a common emblem of the soul. In France the yolk of Green Thursday's egg becomes a diamond after 100 years.'
Another curious custom:
'Sometimes they are used as an aid for seeing the future. They may quite literally assist a child in learning to read, gathering knowledge that lies ahead. Children in Baden were given one, laid on Good Friday, before attending school the first time: letters of the alphabet were stirred into it, and all had to be eaten.'
posted by Caroline at
Monday, April 25, 2011
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