Strange Easter Traditions

As spring is here, also here is Easter. And maybe you are looking for some new traditions for this year.

Read these odd traditions in countries all around the world and maybe you can find something for yourself.

As a Latvian I have to say that couple of these traditions does not seem so strange, but looking at it from a different perspective, other cultures might consider some traditions a bit strange.

1.  As if men needed any more excuses to stay out of the kitchen, in Poland men do not take part in baking the Easter bread because his moustache will turn grey and the dough will fail to rise.

2. Well, here’s one different way of using eggs in a not so very strange Easter tradition. Easter omelettes are a big way of celebrating the occasion right across France but they do it just a bit differently in Haux in the Nantes province. Every Easter Monday the townspeople of take their eggs to a huge pan in the main square and make a huge omelette. More than 4,500 eggs are used to create a dish that feeds 1,000 people.

3.Do you want to know how to maintain your health and beauty throughout the next year? Well if you live in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and some parts of Hungary it’s easy. On Easter Monday you just wait your turn for the men to throw water at you and spank you with a handmade whip of willow decorated with ribbons. “Pomlazka” is also meant to get rid of the ugly and bad things of winter. Many countries with an Orthodox population celebrate this in some form or another but in most cases it is just the water throwing. It is known in variable connotations of Dyngus Day. 

In Latvia we also have this kind of tradition but without water throwing. You can whip your loved ones with a willow whip saying: Out the sickness, in with a health. (Translation may be a bit off, but the thought is there).

4. Greece has many festivals and Saints Days because Easter is more important than Christmas in the Orthodox calendar but amongst their strangest traditions is in Corfu when they throw crockery and pots out of the windows on Easter Saturday. There are a few theories that try to explain this. Some say it represents the rejection of Judas, others say it is simply the exuberance of having a smashing time after the abstinence of Lent, other theorists expound it symbolises getting rid of evil, others that it marks the change of the season when old pots of last year’s harvest are exchanged for new and others think it’s adopted from the old Venetian custom of throwing out your winter things ready for new ones for Spring. Whatever the reason, if you visit Corfu at Easter time be sure to wear your hard hat.

5. In a small town called Bacup in the North of England, every Easter Saturday you can watch the Nutter's Dance. No it isn’t a day the lunatics escape from the asylum but the name given to a strange Easter tradition that has been performed in the town, boundary to boundary, since the 18th century. Led by the Whiffler (or Whipper In) who cracks his whip to drive away evil spirits, a band of men with blackened faces and skirted red, white and black costumes and neck garlands dance traditional folk dances. The origin is believed to have been Moorish sailors who ended up in the area somehow, hence the face coloring and costume style but why it happens on Easter Saturday, there’s no real explanation.

6. Usually, all over the world it is the Easter Bunny that brings in the chocolates and hides the eggs, but in Australia it is an Easter Bilby that brings the eggs. One reason behind this interesting change is to create awareness on bilby which is an endangered species in Australia and another reason is a dislike towards the bunnies which destroy the crops. On Easter, chocolate bilbies will be made.

7. I have to admit that I find this strange Easter tradition the most surprising of all and I’m not sure that the answer is "the butler did it." In Norway, Easter is a five day bank holiday where all shops and businesses close. Grocery stores open on the Saturday before Easter Sunday but otherwise during the holiday shut down Norwegians celebrate Easter by reading tons of crime novels known as Påskekrimmen. TV stations also join in by broadcasting plenty of crime thrillers and magazines print stories for readers to work out a whodunit. Even milk cartons are altered where for a couple of weeks a mystery story is printed on their sides. Why? It’s a mystery!

8.  In Finland, the Easter celebrations have a Halloween look as the children dress up as witches with broomsticks hanged around their necks. They wander in the streets in search of treats. It is believed that during the festival, witches become more powerful and bonfires are made to scare them off.

9. Another strange Easter tradition that you will find practised in some form or another right across Christian countries is the lucky egg game. Hardboiled eggs are used in various ways until only one unbroken one is left and the person holding that egg has good luck until next Easter. In Latvia it is performed like a game of conkers, in Greece the eggs are dyed red representing the blood of Christ and you bang the eggs on your neighbour’s heads and in England it is known as Egg Jarping and around the world it might be known as egg tapping or egg knocking.

10. Colombians have strange dinner menu for the Easter day. Instead of chocolates and eggs, they dine on iguana, turtles and big rodents for the feast.

11. In other countries Easter eggs are hidden and children go for egg hunting but in Germany Easter eggs instead are displayed on trees and prominently in  streets. Some of the trees will have thousands of multi color eggs hanged on them.

Happy Easter everyone!