1. Easter eggs and Easter traditions
in Lithuania
Prepared by Loreta Kalesnykienė
2015
2. One of these unique Lithuanian
traditions is seen on Palm Sunday. In many
parts of the world, churches provide their
parishioners with palms. However, in
Lithuania, churchgoers bring homemade
palms with them to the church to be blessed.
Since the climate is too cold for palm trees,
Lithuanians weave branches of indiginous
plants into decorative palms (verbos) for
Palm Sunday. More like bouquets than
common palm branches, typical verbos
include sprigs from juniper, misteltoe,
weeping willows, pussy willows, and osier
decorated with colorful dried flowers.
Palm Sunday
3. The most striking custom Palm Sunday – it beats Willow
(palm). Shaking to say: "I will not whip you, Willow beats! Give
me an egg?“. People believed that if you someone beat up, or if
someone beat up you - you will be healthy all year.
4. Holy Thursday
On Holy Thursday, or Didysis Ketvirtadienis Lithuanians
clean their homes vigorously to ensure an upcoming year of
abundance and good health. They wash and scrub floors, windows,
pantries, stoves, and laundry in preparation for Good Friday.
Beyond bringing good health and abundant harvests to the
household, this ritualistic spring cleaning is thought to ward off
fleas and evil spirits.
5. Good Friday
On Good Friday, or Didysis Penktadienis in Lithuanian, people
are very somber in respect for the crucified Christ. Children are forbidden
to make noise and the house cleaning begun on Holy Thursday comes to
an end because, as a superstition has it, the dust can get into Jesus' eyes
and he is already suffering so much. Another rather macabre Good
Friday superstition has it that all bugs and pests can be removed from
the home by scattering cemetery soil where the bugs breed!
6. Holy Saturday
On Holy Saturday, or Didysis Šeštadienis in Lithuanian,
people go to church to obtain blessed fire and water. The
belief is that they have miraculous powers and can cure a
multitude of ills and provide protection.
7. Preparing for Easter on Holy
Saturday
The food that will be eaten on Easter is prepared on Holy
Saturday and, later, the entire family colors Easter eggs. These
margučiai are decorated by various methods.
8. In their simplest form, they are dyed naturally with onion skins, beets,
flower petals, hay, and tree bark, for example.
9. The more elegant eggs are made with the wax-resist method. Here is more on
how beautiful Lithuanian Easter Eggs are made.
11. Easter Dinner on Sunday
After Easter morning church
services, people return to their homes to
dine on a sumptuous breakfast with the
contents of the blessed food basket. The
meal starts with an egg that can be sliced
and shared by the entire family as a sign
of unity, or each person can have his own
egg and toast with it by clinking it
against another's. If your egg shell
remains unbroken after the "clinking," you
are destined to have a long life.
12. The Lithuanian Easter buffet is a lavish contrast to the meatless
Lenten fast. Opulent displays of roasted pork, baked ham, lamb, veal, sausages,
roasted duck, and roasted chicken abound. If lamb is not served, then butter or
cheese is molded into the shape of a lamb and served to symbolize Easter.
Accompaniments include homemade cheeses, hard-boiled eggs, sautéed or
creamed mushrooms, kugelis, rye bread, assorted salads, and horseradish. Wine
flows and an equally impressive dessert selection of poppy seed rolls, nut rolls,
honey cakes, and raisin and/or dried fruit “boba” breads follows the meal.
13. Egg rolling
Another tradition is egg rolling.
Players prop one end of a
rounded chute fashioned from
bark or wood (or cardboard in
modern times) at an angle from
the ground. They take turns
rolling an egg down the chute
attempting to tap another’s egg.
If they succeed in tapping
another egg, they claim both
eggs. The player with the most
eggs at the end of the game wins.
14. The Easter Granny
In Lithuania, the Easter
Granny (Velykų Senelė) delivers
Easter eggs and treats to children.
Children often prepare for the
Easter Granny by leaving empty
homemade egg nests outside their
homes in gardens and shrubs. On
Easter morning, they wake to
search for their hidden margučiai
treasures.
15. Rocked on the swing
In the past, the girls rocked on the swing not only in order to
wait for grooms and matchmaker, but also that the flax would be
longer. One more, Easter advised irrigated with water because then
enough rain for crops in the summer.
16. We should mention two final uniquely Lithuanian Easter
traditions. Before everyone indulges in the Velykos feast, the dinner host
slices a hard-boiled egg into as many pieces as there are guests and passes
the plate around the table to share this one egg with everyone. This
sharing of the egg is believed to bring harmony and unity to the household.
17. Easter Superstitions
•If it rains on Easter morning, little children let it pour on their heads to
ensure quick growth.
•If, on the way to Easter Mass you pass a woman, you'll have an accident.
To take the "curse" off, you'll have to retrace your steps and take another
road to church.
•After Mass, the person who arrives home first will be successful all year.
Watch out for pushing and shoving.
•If an accident occurs on Easter, the rest of the year is destined to be
frought with bad luck.
•If Easter morning is sunny and beautiful, the summer will be fair. It it
rains or snows, bad weather is to be expected for the rest of the year.
