Good afternoon, how has everyone been? I have had a good weekend
doing this and that, we had plans to go to the Reptile Park with
Jessica and Leo but as Jessica was sick we cancelled and we will do
it in a few weeks time.
So next weekend is Easter, did you know that Easter is considered to
be the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church.
It is the time when we celebrate the resurrection of Christ and held
in the Western Church between the 21st March and 25th
of April the date is based on the first Sunday after the first full
moon following the northern spring equinox. This I found out via
Google.
Now
I am sure most people when they think of Easter think of the Easter
Bunny and chocolate, but have you ever wondered what the hell is with
the Easter Bunny, like what does a rabbit have to do with Easter.
You may think this is some kind of modern invention but you would be
wrong, most popular Easter traditions have their roots way back in
history, like the Easter Bunny.
In
fact the Easter Bunny can be traced back to ancient Anglo-Saxon
times, way back when the hare was an important symbol of fertility so
it played an important role in the pagan festival of Eostre, whatever
that was.
Legend
claims that this mystical goddess found a wounded bird and turned it
into a hare so it could survive the winter. When this very same hare
found it could lay eggs it made a gift of its eggs to the goddess who
had protected him. And so the tradition of the Easter hare, or bunny
was born.
Eggs have been an
important fertility symbol for millennia,and they have always been
associated with the rebirth of spring. And as eggs are associated
with new life early Christians used them as
a visual symbol of the
resurrection of Jesus. When people first starting giving eggs as
offerings and gifts at Easter time they used birds eggs. They were
painted bright colours to echo the vibrancy of the colours of spring
after the darkness of winter.
In the UK and Europe
early Easter eggs took the form of duck, hen or goose eggs. These
were later replaced by artificial eggs until eventually, as chocolate
became a more widely available foodstuff, the first chocolate eggs
began to appear, in the early 1800s. The vogue for exchanging
chocolate eggs at Easter quickly spread right across the globe so
that by the end of the century chocolate eggs became the ubiquitous
Easter offering.
Have you heard of egg
rolling the tradition of egg rolling on Easter Monday dates back to
Anglo-Saxon Germany. Although historians are unsure of the exact
significance of egg rolling, it's believed that for the early pagans
the activity was seen as a way of bringing new life to the land at
springtime. For early Christians, meanwhile, egg rolling could have
been a representation of the stone being rolled away from Jesus'
tomb.
The tradition of eating
hot cross buns on Good Friday has its roots even further back than
early Christianity. Buns marked with a cross were eaten by the Saxons
during their spring celebrations - it's believed that the bun
represented the moon and the cross the moon's quarters. Christians
continued the tradition but to them the cross symbolises the Jesus'
crucifixion.
Although
chocolate eggs tend to the gift of choice at Easter time today,
coloured, decorated eggs have also been an important symbol and gift
shared at Easter time. The tradition of colouring and decorating eggs
dates back to the Middle Ages when eggs would be painted bright
colours to welcome in the new spring. The
tradition continued and was adapted by different countries; in
Germany, for example, it remains a tradition to paint eggs green and
eat them on Maundy Thursday while in Greece and the Balkans eggs are
dyed red to symbolise the blood of Christ.
But the most elaborate take on the tradition came
from Russia, where in the late 1800s/early 1900s Russian aristocracy
commissioned the French jeweller Faberge to create an egg like no
other, fashioned from enamel and encrusted with the most dazzling
jewels. These incredible Easter gifts are worth millions of pounds
today!
The
special fruit cake eaten at Easter, known as Simnel cake, is steeped
in traditional symbolism. Traditionally the cake has a layer of
marzipan on top and is decorated with marzipan balls - these
symbolise the disciples, though Judas is left out and only 11 balls
are added to the cake.