CUSTOMS AT EASTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21141, 26 March 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

CUSTOMS AT EASTER.

INTERESTING SURVIVALS.

BY WILLfAM CLOU WESLEY.

Mankind must surely have an inborn reverence for the traditions of bygone ages. How else can we account for tho fact that so many ancient customs still cling i to the celebrations of our great festivals ? In connection with the present holiday, for instance, there are two customs observed all over New Zealand: customs which were old in the days of Shakespeare—old even in Chaucer's time. One concerns the hot cross bun »nd the other the. Easter egg; and of these two the bun is entitled to first mention, by right of seniority. For this delicacy, now so intimately connected with Good Friday, is a survival of European paganism, buns marked with a cross having been known long before the beginning of the Christian era. The Bev. T. D. Fosbrooke, in his " Encyclopaedia of Antiquities," mentions " a sacred cake, marked with the cross, as depicted in Greek sculptures and paintings"; and he tells us that Cecrops is said to have been the first to offer up this " sacred libra, called a boun," made of flour and honey. And Winckelmann relates the discovery of two perfect buns at Herculaneum, each marked with a cross. There is certainly a similarity between this ancient' sweetbread and the modern bun. Yet our custom of eating hot cross buns on Good Friday can moro definitely be traced to a. Teutonic origin than to a classical one. For in those far-off heathen days of Anglo-Saxon England a small loaf was baked every year in honour of the goddess Eastre. This special baking took place in Eastre-monath, the month now called April, and at that, time dedicated to the Teutonic deity whose name has been given to our modern festival. The loaves or cakes were sweetened, if sweetened at all, with honey, and they were baked on the hearthstone in front of an open fire. With the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity this annual cake-baking went on as before, but, the cakes were now marked with the sign of the cross to dispel any association with paganism. John Timbs, in " The Calendar," states that " Formerly in England the superstitious preserved Good Friday buns from year to year, from the belief of their efficacy in the cure of diseases." And Poor Robin, in his Almanac for 1753, says—"Whose virtue is, if you believe what's said. They'll not grow mouldy like the common bread. " Peace Eggs." The giving of eggs as presents at Eastertide has been customary for some halfdozen centuries at least. And what could be more appropriate than the association of eggs with Easter; for the egg has from very ancient times been considered symbolic of life: and is not Easter in every way the grand festival of life ? In Sir Walter Scott's " Ivanhoe " we read that the monks had formed the habit of giving " peace eggs " early on Easter Sunday morning to neighbours and friends, and even to strangers who might happen to pass that way. Enhancement was given to the present by the accompanying blessing, " Pax vobiscum!" At one time these eggs were all dyed red in remembrance of the blood of the Saviour, but later it became usual for them to be stained in any one of several hues, and this form of Easter gift gradually became general among the laity, too. According to one of the Royal household expenditure sheets during the reign of King Edward the First, that monarch gave instructions for four hundred eggs to be bought, painted in various colours, and distributed as Easter gifts among the King's Servants. This would be about the year 1300, when eggs were very cheap and when the purchasing power of money was much greater than it is to-day; for these four hundred eggs cost only eighteen pence. Not a very munificent present after all. In Sural England. Many a time-honoured custom still lingers on in rural England, although almost forgotten in tho towns. One of these is the wearing of new clothes for tho first time at church on Easter Sunday morning. In country districts in the Midlands and in the northern counties this notion retains such a hold on tho popular mind that to appear on Easter Sunday without new clothes is to " break your luck " for the following twelve months. At Easter let your clothes be new. Or else be euro you will it rue. In Cumberland and Westmorland, even before holidays became the rule instead of the ideal, no blacksmith would heat an iron on Good Friday, no matter how urgently the job was required. There was an old superstition in those parts that, because nails were used in the crucifixion of Christ, iron was therefore an unhallowed metal on Good Friday. In the island of Corsica there is annually observed with great gusto a quaint custom that originated in the Middle Ages. The tourist who happens to be in Corsica on Holy Saturday will most likely be awakened early by tho sounds of pistol shots and the banging of wood. The shots represent the exuberant Easter spirit which then pervades the island, while the other and more persistent sound is the noisy manifestation of an ancient superstition. At sunriso on this particular day it is customary for every housewife to put a wooden box outside the front door. Presently come little groups of boys, all armed with cudgels or broomsticks, and as these juvenile Corsicans pass down the street they heartily belabour the different boxes; for only by their doing this can tho devil be frightened and beaten away for another year. Oranges and Flowers. At Hungerford, in Berkshire, there survives what seems to bo a local variant of a custom of the stirring times when Dane and Saxon struggled for supremacy in Britain; but it may have originated in tho days of John of Gaunt, jmd be kept to commemorate certain privileges which that famous Duke of Lancaster obtained for tho favoured borough. At Hungerford tho town crier goes through tho streets early in tho day, blowing a horn that is believed to be hundreds of years old. Later come two "tithing men," carrying poles decorated with flowers ar.J ribbons, and behind them walks a man with a load of oranges. A poll-tax of a penny is demanded front any man encountered, while the forfeit for a woman is a kiss. Every lady thus saluted is presented with an orange. Tho distribution of Maundy money and the washing of the feet of a number of poor persons are customs which aro still carried out on tho day beforo Good Friday in the precincts of Westminster Abbey, although nowadays the two tasks are delegated to the Lord Almoner, as deputy for the Sovereign. Another old custom is that of decorating the church with tiowers; and there is that, in churches where vestments are worn, of having tho surplices newly starched for the Church's High Foast. Then there is the custom which consists of the payment of Easter-dues or offerings to the minister by his congregation.