Bizarre Easter traditions

One of the biggest holidays in the world, with customs that are the same in many places, but with some differences. It is celebrated all over the world, in one way or another.

However, some countries have some very bizarre Easter traditions….have you ever wondered where they come from?

written by: Niki – Continent Surfer

My curiosity for travel, adventure and different cultures has kept me going, so now we’ve been looking for some of the strangest traditions.

Eostre Teuton

She was a goddess who regarded rabbits as saints. According to some British monks, the English word ‘Easter’ seems very likely to derive from her name, although there is little scientific evidence to support this. Little is known about her, but in Germanic mythology, Eostre Teuton herself was the goddess of fertility and spring. The surviving stories about her mention her in the spring, with rebirth and blossoming flowers.

Since rabbits were symbols of fertility, egg-laying and spring were associated with rebirth, and later Christians saw eggs as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus.

EGG-STRAVAGANZA!!!!

Children today still look forward to Easter, enjoy egg painting, egg hunts, even candy hunts.

Cute traditions, but sometimes they dress up as giant Easter bunnies and take photos with the child. That in itself scares me, let alone the child….but proof of this can be found online. A quick google search is full of terrifying child faces sitting on the lap of the giant bunny.

Also, for a Scandinavian country, it may seem strange why children are dressed as witches and running around looking for sweets!

Let’s see what else you’re raising your eyebrows at!

Shooting Easter bunnies in New Zealand

It may seem a cruel custom, but in New Zealand it’s the height of the Easter holiday when this event takes place. Rabbits are hunted and killed. There they say it is essential and very much needed because rabbits are a threat to the environment and some plants. The exercise is done in teams and the ones who collect the most rabbits even get a cash prize!

Out of jail!

Catholics in Malaga prison in Spain could be in luck at Easter. According to the newspaper ‘The Local’, there is a tradition stemming from an incident in 1759 when a riot broke out over a plague outbreak in the prison, causing the inmates to cancel the Easter procession. The prisoners were then forcibly freed, marched through the streets carrying an image of Jesus and then, miraculously, voluntarily returned to their prison cells. The king of the day was so impressed that every Easter since then, a few prisoners have been released and the tradition is still alive today!

Some places beat their wives

We’re all familiar with Hungarian watering customs, but a little further afield, in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, women are even flogged. If you’re visiting these countries as a woman at Easter time, you should be careful because you could get soaked by buckets of ice-cold water. Could this be the origin of today’s modern ‘ice bucket challenge’? 🙂

Cold water is serious, but whipping is of course just a playful thing to do in order to stimulate good health. The willow is the first tree to bloom in spring and tradition says that whoever is whipped with a whip, I mean a decorated willow branch, will be healthy and happy in the coming year, as the willow tree itself gives its vitality, vigour and fertility to young women!

Easter crime

In Norway, there is a long tradition of Easter crime! But that doesn’t mean that everyone commits crimes at this time of year, but that during the “Paaskekrim” or “Easter-Crime”, detective books are read, TV shows detective films, “whodunit” programmes. Many families go on holiday during Easter week, when the children play mystery-solving games, and the family plays board games with this theme.

Arson

In Cyprus, children paint Easter eggs and go on egg hunts in the same way as in many other countries. But once you cross the age of adolescence, you can take part in bonfire-burning customs and go not on an egg hunt, but to collect old pieces of wood to make the bonfire as big as possible. Cities will be boasting of a long time if they win the ‘largest bonfire burning city’ award.

Spanish Dance of Death

The “dansa de la mort”, performed in Verges, Spain, late at night after a regular Passion Play, is a rather disturbing tradition. A few people dressed in skeleton costumes take to the streets and perform an eerie dance to the beat of drums. The dance is supposed to symbolise the final judgement of where the soul goes after death: heaven, purgatory or hell!

Did you know?

The act of painting eggs originates from a Ukrainian tradition. For countless generations, Ukrainians have been decorating eggs as a calling out to the Gods and Goddesses of health and fertility. This traditional act of pysanka (“pih-sahn-kah”) is made by using wax and dyes, but this colourful custom didn’t take off until Ukrainian immigrants came to the U.S.

Source(s):

Original article: Bizarr húsvéti hagyományok Translated by: BOGI – CONTINENT SURFER

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