Easter is celebrated
in three successive days. The first one is always a Sunday when
everyone goes to the official church service. The candle that is
carried throughout the service is should be carried home while it is
still burning. Everybody fight with the painted eggs by crash them one
against the other. The person whose egg is the strongest will be the
healthiest one during the year. On that holiday newly-wedded couples
go visit their first witnesses and the parents of the bride. They
bring them painted eggs and Easter breads and receive the same things
in return.
The lasses that have taken part in the kumichene go to the
house of the lass they have chosen for their kumitsa and bring red
eggs. Each lass is nicely dressed with a string, a wreath and a flower
and asks forgiveness from the kumitsa. After that the ritual
"ljulenki; is performed. After the lunch has finished everyone goes to
a place where there are high trees and hang cradles. The lads come as
well. Everybody rocks to protect themselves from dragons and diseases.
During the holidays an Easter horo is
played on the square.
The second day of the Easter holidays is also called "razturni (messed
up) Monday" and is connected with the ritual "flourishing of eggs"
which is done as a protection from hails and for fertility. The lads
and the lasses go to a meadow and roll red eggs to each other.
The greeting "Christ resurrected" is used for 40 days.
The week after Easter is called Tomina nedelq (Tomas Sunday).
Easter is not only a great Orthodox holiday in Bulgaria. It is also an
occasion for popular celebrations and festivals dedicated to the
spring reawakening of nature. It is also the end of the official
fasting that forbids merrymaking and dancing as well as the beginning
of the courting season for the young bachelors and would-be brides.
One of the biggest
sins for the traditional Bulgarian mindset is to work on a holiday. A
song tells the story of the punishment for those who breach the
custom.
The new attire was an integral part of the holiday for
the young girls. Now that spring is back again they have to
demonstrate what they have been up to all winter.
Authentic Bulgarian Easter and spring songs are traditionally
performed at the Koprivshtitsa folklore festival.
Usually Easter comes before Saint George’s Day, which is
celebrated May 6. But a great number of Bulgarian folk songs are
dedicated to Easter and Saint George’s Day.
Village holidays in the days around Easter were
an excellent opportunity for the young to be together, even under the
severe gaze of their parents. An old ritual had it that they swayed in
a swing for health and luck in the choice of spouse. There is a song
treating the subject of solar swings. Once the Sun rolled down a swing
for the most beautiful earthly maid to take away as his bride
Velikden (Easter)
(Passover)
“Oh, Easter – Sun, Life is a chicken – red and motley, Hatched by you!”
(folk song) Easter, or also called Pasha (from Hebrew, meaning
‘passing over’), is a holiday that has its origin in antiquity.
Roaming nomadic, Semitic and Thracian tribes celebrated it, rejoicing
in spring, in the revival of nature and life. With the emergence of
Christianity the holiday is connected with the resurrection of Jesus
Christ and this is why at first the holiday of Jews and Christians
coincided. But in 325, the year of the Nicean Council, a decision was
taken to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the vernal
equinox. That is why until now the holiday has no fixed date in the
calendar. The three great days are celebrated during the time between
April 4 and May 8.
An ancient legend tells that many years ago, when
God walked on earth among the people and healed them, there was a
kingdom in which there lived an evil sorcerer. He locked the water and
the sun in a deep cave with nine padlocks. Many years passed. People
worked from morning till night but earth bore no fruit without water
and light. The grass dried, animals died, birds disappeared. People
lived in small dark houses overgrown with weeds, which they used for
food… They forgot their traditions and became so malicious that they
incessantly fought among themselves. In a little hut, tucked away in
the mountain, there lived a young man with two children – a girl and a
boy. The evil sorcerer had taken away the mother by force to his
palace to serve him. The winter was hard, frost and cold bound the
earth. Spring came and one day the father went to the forest for fresh
herbs and on that very moment the whole Earth shone bright. From that
light the sorcerer got blind. He lost his power and was turned into a
small black beetle. The people broke the padlocks and freed the water
and the sun. The celestial body rose high and shone over the entire
Earth. The water ran down the mountain, babbled merrily and flooded
the forest, the fields and the plains. The trees covered with green
leaves, the birds and the animals came back to where they lived and
the earth came to life again.” From that time on people dedicated this
day to Grandfather Easter. They dye red eggs and celebrate the
new-born nature. “Easter is not Easter without a red egg!” people say.
The practice of dying eggs for Easter is as old as the holiday itself.
In folk legends the egg is seen as a symbol of life, of renovation, of
resurrection for new life. That is why all ancient mythologies have
the belief that “the whole world” was born from
an egg. One of the first mentions of the world egg can be found in the
ancient Egyptian manuscripts from the period of the New Kingdom (14–11
c. BC). According to it, God Tot was born out of an egg in the
town of Hermopolis (near Cairo). In the “Book of the Dead”, chapter 85
relates how eight gods from Hermopolis originated from the world ocean
Nune and created the primeval egg from which, in the form of a bird,
the Sun appeared. And in the “Texts of the Sarcophagi” we find the
story of the egg of Osiris. In it were Osiris and Set, who were
brothers, but the one was an incarnation of good and the other – an
incarnation of evil. The myth indicates that the origin of good roots.
There he cut a wooden egg, dyed it with red soil and decided to take
it to his children to play with it. When he returned home the children
were asleep and he put the red egg next to their heads so they would
see it when they wake up in the morning. He also went to sleep. During
the night an old man with a white beard came to him and warned him
that on the next day his house will be visited by the evil sorcerer to
take away his two children. “But don’t you worry,” the old man said,
“hold the red egg in your hand!” He said that and disappeared. This
old man was Grandfather Easter. On the next day, in a carriage drawn
by a three-headed dragon, the sorcerer arrived with fire and thunder
and stopped in front of his house. The father was horrified and hugged
his children tightly in this arms. The red egg rolled by the heads of
the children and shone like a small sun. The father remembered the
advice of the good old Easter. He grabbed the egg in his hand and held
it high above his head and evil is one and the same. During the Middle
Ages the egg symbolized the four elements of the universe: the shell
symbolized the Earth, the membrane – the air, the white symbolized the
water, and the yolk – the fire. In mythology and in everyday practice
life and death are always interrelated.
Dying eggs -
Each dye is mixed in a separate, new pot. The first egg to colour
should
be red. It is placed next to the home icon. In the past, women used
natural pigments - infusions of walnut tree leaves, onion peelings (to
dye yellow), blueberries (to dye purple), infusion of fir-cones (to
dye beige), boiled beet (to dye red), corn-flower (to dye blue). Eggs
are also decorated using various streaking techniques.
Each dye is diluted in a separate, new pot. The first egg to
dye should be red. It is placed next to the home icon. In the past
women used natural pigments - infusions of walnut tree leaves, onion
peelings (to dye yellow), blueberries (to dye purple), infusion of
fir-cones (to dye beige), boiled beet (to dye red), corn-flower (to
dye blue). Of course, in our days housewives apply chemical dyes. Eggs
are dyed after being boiled hard. If you wish to colour eggs in an
original way, pour several drops of vegetable oil in the dye. The
egg-shell will keep its white colour where touched by the oil, and an
interesting mosaic design will be produced. You can also “imprint”
leaves of wild geranium or some other leaves. To this purpose, wrap
tightly the egg together with the leaf in gauze and then drop it in
the dye for several minutes. Take out the egg, but do not unpack it
outright. Wait for several minutes, remove the gauze, let the egg dry
and only then remove the leaf.
That is why the egg has become the symbol of both life and death. In
the museum of folk tradition in Basel (Switzerland) they keep the
costume of Death, decorated with garlands of eggshells. And in one of
the museums in Milan there is a painting by Piero Franchesca from 1472
of Virgin Mary with the infant above whom is an egg – the symbol of
death and eternal life and of hope. May be this is the reason why in
some regions of Bulgaria the mummers are lead by an old man carrying
an egg. For the mummers “die” to come to life again with nature, with
the hope for tomorrow’s prosperity. The Easter bread is the second
basic symbol of this day. It is never cut but broken by the oldest
person in the house into as many pieces as there are members of the
family and one piece is left for God as well. After the traditional
meal comes the time for songs, the ring horo dances and the
“swinging”. Every young girl must “swing” not to be loved by the
dragon, to be healthy and be loved by the young men.
What can be done with Easter Eggs when one is artistically gifted.
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PEACE HAVENS of BULGARIA
