THE presentation of eggs at Easter has become too much of an established custom to need description. To those, however, who may still regard it as a somewhat puerile, if graceful, recognition of the great Church festival, it may be a surprise to learn that this custom dates from a long time before Christendom.
It would, indeed, be difficult to determine its origin, seeing that, as far back as history carries us, the “giving of eggs” at a certain time of year had assumed the significance of a sacred rite with most pagan races.
From the Easter eggs of the early Aryan of Eastern Europe to our own fin-de-siècle triumph of art in chocolate, sugar, and even satin, indeed, is a far cry. Yet that these primitive tribes recognised the ceremony as one of no mean importance is clearly proved by the curious and unique collection of Aryan Easter eggs preserved in the Museum at Cracow.
This “giving of eggs” was also a time-honoured observance among the Persians, Egyptians, Gauls, Greeks, and Romans—an observance arising doubtlessly from the fact that the egg was regarded by the Mystics as a symbol emblematic of the earth and our mundane system. Thus, the yolk was supposed to represent this world, the white its surrounding atmosphere, and the shell that solid crystal sphere in which the stars were popularly supposed to be set. This idea, too, had reference to the seminal principal contained in the egg, likening it to Chaos, which held the germ of all things.
Most customs of the early Church had their origin largely in Paganism. The Persians still hold an important feast at a time of year corresponding to our Easter. This is called the “Feast of the Water,” and at it eggs are presented by friends to each other. This Persian festival is kept in commemoration of the Creation, and Sir R. K. Porter, in his book of travel, considers, I believe, that here originated our Easter egg.
We know the word “Easter” to be of purely Pagan derivation, the yearly Druidical feast in honour of the Goddess Eostre or Eastre (the Astarte of the Phoenicians) being held in the spring, and the early British Christians evidently derived the name Easter from their corresponding season of the year.
The term “Pash” eggs was formerly more commonly heard than “Easter” eggs, Pash being a corruption of Pasha (Passover).
“The giving of these eggs was observed as a sacred rite in the early Roman Church, the eggs being brought to the priest, who blessed them in the following words
"Bless, O Lord, we beseech Thee, this Thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance, to Thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to Thee on account of the resurrection of our Lord.”
In the Russo-Greek Church, where the impressive Easter Eve ceremony is held at midnight, and attended by the Corps Diplomatique and society generally in full dress, the “Pascha” (a pyramid-shaped cake) and the Easter eggs are publicly blessed before an immense congregation, all of whom hold lighted candles, and at the stroke of twelve the “popes” go through the ceremony of carrying the “coffin of Christ” thrice round the church, while the exquisite voices of the Russian choir chant the resurrection hymn.
Then all hasten home to the Rasgowlénie, or the “breaking of their fast,” at which again the egg is of paramount importance, being given and received with the thrice-repeated kiss, and the words, “Christoss woskréss!” (Christ is risen).
In Germany the hare enters largely into the Easter festivities. He is the “Easter hare,” and has his votaries in the nursery, where no doubt whatever is entertained of his having laid all the sugary delights that are hunted for on Easter Day.
He has, in fact, a grand time, and is for the moment the all-important beast.
You find him here, there, and everywhere—modelled in sugar—and in chocolate or in papier-mâché, with his inside stuffed full of bon-bons. Sometimes he is sitting in a mossy nest surrounded by a circle of little eggs, sometimes reclining complacently inside an ova large enough to have been the work of an ostrich!
I don't know that anyone has yet satisfactorily accounted for the connection between the hare and the Easter egg, although it is not in Germany alone that he poses as an important factor in the Easter festivities.
In England I have heard of two places where the hare used to bear a connection to Eastertide. At Coleshill, in Warwickshire, a custom once prevailed, according to which, if the young men of the parish were able to catch a hare and bring it to their parson before ten o'clock on Easter Monday, he was bound to present them with a calf's head, a hundred eggs, and a groat of money!
How uneasy must have been the sleep of that reverend gentleman on the eve! How he must have prayed for even additional swiftness to be vouchsafed to the fleet-footed hare!
The other place was Hallerton, in Leicestershire, where the rector of the parish had received a bequest to provide two hare pies, a quantity of ale, and two dozen penny loaves to be scrambled for; the custom has long since passed into disuse. Before its cessation, however, “fraudulent practice” had crept in, and the erstwhile hare pie had degenerated into one of “veal and ham”!
Before concluding, I may mention one more curious custom which used to prevail at Lausanne, and which may, for aught I know to the contrary, still be in vogue. Here Easter Monday was held as the especial jour de fête of the butchers, who, carrying banners and in carnival array, paraded the streets, finally marching in procession to Mont Benon, where all sorts of round games were indulged in, the principal one, however, being that of leaping backwards across a space strewn with eggs. Whoever succeeded in accomplishing this feat without coming to grief and breaking them, received the eggs as his prize.
Thus from the Orient and up, through countless generations of heathendom, may be traced the origin of many a custom surviving amidst our Western civilisation either in the form of a child's game or in that of some still observed religious ceremony. Paganism survives through all creeds, although when clothed with a newer Christian signification—like that of turning to the East in reading the Creed—the more remote origin may have become half-forgotten, if not wholly consigned to oblivion.
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