Easter Egg Crafts

Sunday, January 27, 2013

The English Pace Egg Play

St George slays Bold Slasher - Heptonstall Pace Egg Play The Pace Egg Play is acted out every Good Friday in Weavers Square, Heptonstall. The Heptonstall Players give the following description "Originally an adult rebirth ceremony for a good new season The Pace Egg Play is perhaps the world's oldest drama and can be traced back through English and European Mummers' plays to ancient Egypt and Syria. A mixture of a pagan rebirth ceremony with the later influences of Christianity and the Crusades." This account of the plays origins is disputed by some researchers who suggest it may be more recent in date. The Heptonstall version was revived in 1979. More information about the play and its origins: http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/features/pace-egg.html

The Pace Egg Plays are traditional village plays, with a rebirth theme, in which St George smites all challengers and the fool, Toss Pot, rejoices. The drama takes the form of a combat between the hero and villain, in which the hero is killed and brought to life, often by a quack doctor.

The plays take place in England during Easter, indeed the word 'Pace' comes from the old English word 'pasch' literally meaning 'Easter'. They are a tradition that was once widespread throughout England, but is now only practiced in a few areas, particularly Lancashire and West Yorkshire.

Many Pace Egg plays died out after the Great War, when many of the men who took part in them were killed in action. In Middleton, North Manchester, Pace Egging (performing the Pace Egg Play) was revived in 1967. The Bury Pace Eggers were revived in 1969, and still perform in pubs and square around the town and surrounding villages over the Easter weekend.

The plays have also enjoyed a remarkable renaissance in Heptonstall, West Yorkshire in recent decades. The origins are uncertain, but some version of the plays have undoubtedly been performed over many hundreds of years. It has become an established Good Friday tradition, and hundreds come to Weavers Square to watch. In the play St George takes on contenders such as Bold Slasher, the Black Prince of Paradine and Hector.

The costumes — in particular the strange headgear comprising a towering edifice garlanded with flowers, peculiar to the Calder Valley — are as much a part of the fun as the action, where violent sword fights predominate but, as ever, good triumphs over evil.

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Add A Few Porcelain Geese to Your Easter Eggs!

China geese laying enormous eggs!

I made these eggs many years ago when my girls were quite small. It seems as though I frequently have too many "knick-knacks" cluttering up my drawers and toy boxes! Consequently, I am always looking for a way to recycle this stuff. These little china geese dressed in their Easter splendor seemed an obvious choice for decorating eggs. On many occasions I have hollowed out the eggs to create small vignettes with similar china pieces. However, this time I thought they would look endearing as new parents. Their eggs most have been switched out by some deviant hen because these eggs are far too much for the geese to keep warm!

You will need too hollow out two ordinary chicken eggs for this Easter egg craft and also purchase a couple of tiny nests to hot glue to the bottom of each egg. I added a little dry moss beneath the rumps of the geese and also between the nests and the smooth surface of the eggs in order for the hot glue to adhere to both surfaces firmly.

This type of egg craft could be treated quite playfully depending upon the characters you happen to have on hand.

Easter by Ruth Metcalf
The birds give you greeting.
The butterflies too,
Put on winged beauty,
Sweet child for you.

Origins of The Easter Bunny or Rabbit

Easter bunny or hare with eggs.

The Easter Bunny or Easter Rabbit is a character depicted as a rabbit bringing Easter eggs, who sometimes is depicted with clothes. In legend, the creature carries colored eggs in his basket, candy and sometimes also toys to the homes of children, and as such shows similarities to Santa Claus, as they both bring gifts to children on the night before their respective holiday. It was first mentioned in Georg Franck von Frankenau's De ovis paschalibus (About Easter Eggs) in 1682 referring to an Alsace tradition of an Easter Hare bringing Easter Eggs.

The hare was a popular motif in medieval church art. In ancient times it was widely believed (as by Pliny, Plutarch, Philostratus and Aelian) that the hare was a hermaphrodite. The idea that a hare could reproduce without loss of virginity led to an association with the Virgin Mary, with hares sometimes occurring in illuminated manuscripts and Northern European paintings of the Virgin and Christ Child. It may also have been associated with the Holy Trinity, as in the three hares motif, representing the "One in Three and Three in One" of which the triangle or three interlocking shapes such as rings are common symbols. In England, this motif usually appears in a prominent place in the church, such as the central rib of the chancel roof, or on a central rib of the nave. This suggests that the symbol held significance to the church, and casts doubt on the theory that they may have been masons' or carpenters' signature marks.

Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of antiquity. Since birds lay eggs and rabbits and hares give birth to large litters in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the March Equinox.

Rabbits and hares are both prolific breeders. Female hares can conceive a second litter of offspring while still pregnant with the first. This phenomenon is known as superfetation. Lagomorphs mature sexually at an early age and can give birth to several litters a year (hence the saying, "to breed like bunnies"). It is therefore not surprising that rabbits and hares should become fertility symbols, or that their springtime mating antics should enter into Easter folklore.

The precise origin of the ancient custom of decorating eggs is not known, although evidently the blooming of many flowers in spring coincides with the use of the fertility symbol of eggs—and eggs boiled with some flowers change their color, bringing the spring into the homes. Many Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red, the color of blood, in recognition of the blood of the sacrificed Christ (and, of the renewal of life in springtime). Some also use the color green, in honor of the new foliage emerging after the long dead time of winter.

German Protestants wanted to retain the Catholic custom of eating colored eggs for Easter, but did not want to introduce their children to the Catholic rite of fasting. Eggs were forbidden to Catholics during the fast of Lent, which was the reason for the abundance of eggs at Easter time.

The idea of an egg-laying bunny came to the U.S. in the 18th century. German immigrants in the Pennsylvania Dutch area told their children about the "Osterhase" (sometimes spelled "Oschter Haws"). "hase" means "hare", not rabbit, and in Northwest European folklore the "Easter Bunny" indeed is a hare, not a rabbit. According to the legend, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in the nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter. In 1835, Jakob Grimm wrote of long-standing similar myths in Germany itself. Grimm suggested that these derived from legends of the reconstructed continental Germanic goddess ostara.

The Easter Egg Tree

Saalfeld Easter egg tree with 9200 eggs, taken March 24, 2009.

A German tradition of decorating trees and bushes with Easter eggs is known as the Ostereierbaum, or Easter egg tree. A notable example is the Saalfelder Ostereierbaum (Saalfeld Easter egg tree) in Saalfeld, Thuringia.

The tradition in Germany to decorate the branches of trees and bushes with eggs for Easter is centuries old, but its origins have been lost. The egg is an ancient symbol of life all over the world. Eggs are hung on branches of outdoor trees and bushes and on cut branches inside. The custom is found mostly in Germany and Austria, but also in other German-influenced places such as Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moravia, and the Pennsylvania Dutch region of the United States. Egg trees are also sometimes decorated on May Day, Christmas, Whitsun, and the summer solstice. Other German Easter traditions include the dressing of public wells as Osterbrunnen, Osterhasen (Easter Hares) and Osterfeuer (Easter bonfires).

An exceptional example is Saalfelder Ostereierbaum, an apple tree in the garden of Volker Kraft in Saalfeld, Thuringia. Kraft and his family have been decorating the tree since 1965, starting with just 18 plastic eggs. This had been a childhood dream of Volker Kraft since he saw his first Easter "tree", a lilac bush which he passed on the way to school as a youth in 1945. By 1994 the Krafts had increased the number of eggs to about 350 pieces. As the tree grew, they needed more eggs for decorating. The Krafts blew out almost all the eggs used in their household during the year and reused the eggs each year.

Between 1994 and 2009, the family hung an annual average of 700 new Easter eggs on the tree, but due to losses by storm and vandalism, the net annual average increase was 590 eggs. In 2012 there were over 10,000 eggs on the Easter egg tree, and Kraft said that he would not try to hang more. The tree in Saalfeld does not hold the record for the most eggs on one tree. That honor belongs to the Rostock Zoo, which in April 2007 decorated a red oak with 79,596 blown and painted eggs, which earned it an entry in Guinness World Records.

In 1995, a ver.di training center was built in the immediate vicinity, bringing more visitors and national fame to the Kraft Easter egg tree. Beginning in 2003 newspapers from Holland, Kuwait, Austria, Spain, Australia, Thailand, USA, and South Africa began reporting on the Kraft Easter egg tree. Crowds of visitors have continuously come since then. The entrance is free, but for curiosity the visitors were counted in 2011 as about 8,000.

Depending on the weather and the date of Easter, the family begins hanging eggs on the tree between late February and late March, roughly four weeks before Easter. In 2009 it took them nine days to decorate the tree; the task involved family members, especially Volker Kraft, his wife Christa, and daughter Gabriela Rumrich. They use ladders to reach the heights of the tree, and hang the eggs working from the inside near the trunk to outside of the tree branches, and from top to bottom. They remove the eggs before the leaves grow to prevent damage to the tree.

All eggs are mouth-blown. Some are sprayed with one or more multicolored patterns. Some eggs are painted with motifs found in the city, such as the city gates or the home-museum, but world-famous buildings are also used as motifs. Many eggs are covered in crochet and protected against further weathering. New themes are used every year. They perforate some eggs for decoration, and others are enhanced with clay for transformation to shapes such as frogs, turtles, hedgehogs, and hot air balloons.

Some visitors bring their own eggs and donate them to the tree, and eggs from foreign countries are represented. Especially precious eggs are shown in a protective display case.

Decorating The Public Wells For Easter

A video depicting a wide variety of fountain decorations.

The Osterbrunnen (Easter Well or Easter Fountain) is a German tradition of decorating public wells or fountains with Easter eggs for Easter. It began in the early 20th century in the Franconian Switzerland region of Upper Franconia but has spread to other regions. The decoration is usually kept from Good Friday until two weeks after Easter.

Decorating a well for Easter honours water, essential for life, and Easter, the feast of renewed life. In addition to eggs (now often artificial, to guard against vandalism), paper ribbons called "Pensala" and garlands of evergreens are woven around well-heads or formed into crowns over them. In several locations flowers are also used.

The region of Franconian Switzerland (German: Fränkische Schweiz) in Franconia, so called for its rugged rock outcroppings, lies partly within northern Bavaria, north-west Baden-Württemberg and southern Thuringia. The tradition of Osterbrunnen began there in the early 20th century. The Osterbrunnen in Aufseß is said to have been first decorated around 1909; that in the village of Engelhardsberg has been dressed since 1913. After World War II, public wells became less important, reducing the amount of decoration. However, beginning in 1952, Dr. Kunstmann and his wife, of Nuremberg, worked to revive the tradition in Franconian Switzerland. During the 1980s the idea spread to other parts of Upper Franconia. The decorated wells became a tourist attraction; the wells in Heiligenstadt and Bieberbach are destinations for bus tours from cities such as Munich and Dresden. Heiligenstadt is visited by some 80 buses a day. The fountain in Bieberbach was listed in 2001 in the Guinness World Records for 11,108 hand-painted eggshells.

The tradition of the Osterbrunnen has also spread outside Franconia to Hesse and to the Steigerwald, to the valley of the Altmühl, to Saxony, to the Palatinate, to the Saarland and to Swabia.

There was an old tradition throughout Germany of drawing water in silence at Easter for purification and medical treatment, which was sometimes referred to as Osterbrunnen. Wells were cleaned and decorated with garlands and sometimes eggs in May, a tradition which survived relatively late in the 19th century in Bacharach. Other dates for well decorating included Pentecost in southern Thuringia and Midsummer in Fulda; it took place at Easter in Bohemia. Nineteenth-century writers, particularly Karl Weinhold, suggested that these traditions of well cleaning and decorating were remnants of pre-Christian practices. In work first published in 1987, Claudia Schillinger has argued for a Wendish origin of the decoration of wells in Franconia.

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