It was a lovely service in Church this morning, beautifully led by Andrew. It was super seeing him bounding up the aisle with a sword, he made me feel positively exhausted (all to illustrate that Jesus is alive). There were lots of villagers and visitors to the service & lovely to see so many children there. The Wright children contributed some lovely readings. Afterwards whilst the adults were enjoying coffee & biscuits the children were able to hunt for Easter Eggs. The church looks lovely, everywhere you looked there was an abundance of daffodils all arranged by volunteers yesterday. Thank you.
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I was asked this morning, by a young visitor, “Why do we have Easter Eggs?” “Well its something to do with celebrating the end of Lent, celebrating Christ’s resurrection, that the egg is a symbol of rebirth and new life, that eggs were less frequent during the winter, but the hens start laying more in Spring (especially older breeds of hen that would lay a lot less in Winter), that it was a hang over from earlier pagan fertility festivals celebrating Spring, … … … Chocolate eggs didn’t begin to be popular until the 1960s”, I replied, drawing breath to give her a fuller answer. But if I am honest I don’t really know the answer. Perhaps my young visitor was more on the ball, cutting through my speculation by saying, “But chocolate is great”.
Does anyone know the correct answer, and how old the custom of Easter Eggs is? Perhaps if we had been in Church we would have found out more?
The History of the Easter Egg
Easter has become the confectioner’s paradise since Cadbury’s produced their first chocolate egg in 1875.
Although the custom of giving chocolate eggs goes back so few years, the giving of real eggs, coloured and decorated is a custom that dates back over 2,000 years.
To the ancient Chinese, Greeks and Persians, the egg was a symbol of new life. So they exchanged eggs at their festival to honour the goddess of spring as she rose from her winter sleep to fill the earth with glorious new life. Our Anglo-Saxon forebears called her “Eostre” and so we got the word Easter.
To the early Christians the egg seemed a fitting symbol of Christ’s resurrection from the tomb. That was why the eating of eggs was forbidden in Lent, while on Easter Day they were blessed in the churches, exchanged as gifts and eaten joyfully.
Easter eggs have been coloured and decorated from earliest times. In Edward I’s household accounts for 1307 there is an entry of:
18 pence for 450 eggs to be boiled and dyed or covered with gold leaf and distributed to the Royal household.
Later, craftsmen made artificial eggs of silver and gold, ivory or porcelain, often inlaid with jewels.
In the 18th century, people could buy pasteboard or papier-maché eggs, in which they hid small gifts. By the 19th century cardboard eggs covered with silk, lace or velvet and fastened with ribbon were fashionable.
The chocolate Easter egg has developed from the simple type wrapped in paper to the beribboned variety wrapped in brightest foil and packed in a box or basket.
In Europe Easter eggs are taken seriously. The old art of decorating the real egg is still very much alive. Many of them are dyed red to symbolise Christ’s blood.
Playing games with hard-boiled eggs as a custom is as old as giving of Easter eggs. Egg rolling, which symbolised the rolling away of the tomb of Christ, was probably the most popular and is still played here in Preston on Easter Monday, as well as at Thurnham near Lancaster. Several European countries also enjoy this custom.
http://www.fulwood.org.uk/magazine/fmcmag/2004/easter/egg.php
Jane, you should not have put the link at the bottom, I was quite ready to believe that you had produced the response off the top of your head.
Watching late night TV, I came across a legend linking Mary Magdalene to the origin of Easter eggs:
The following is is taken from http://saintsandspinners.blogspot.com/2005/03/legend-of-red-egg.html
After the Ascension of the Christ, Mary Magdalene travelled to Rome. As a wealthy woman of high social standing, she was admitted to the courts of Tiberius Caesar. At dinner, she told Tiberius Caesar of Pilate’s miscarriage of justice at the trial of Jesus. Tiberius Caesar was captivated by her retelling. However, when she said that Jesus rose from the dead, Tiberius Caesar scoffed. Undeterred, Mary Magdalene picked up an egg from the table and held it before him. The Romans understood that the egg symbolized life bursting forth from a sealed tomb, but Tiberius Caesar laughed and said, “A human being can no more rise from the dead than the egg in your hand could turn red.”
Immediately, the egg turned red. (So did Tiberius Caesar, probably.)
To this day, the Byzantine church commemorates this legend with the exchange of red eggs.
Having mentioned the Easter Egg comments to Mike Hughes he sent me the following extract from the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
The use of painted and decorated Easter eggs was first recorded in the 13th century. The church prohibited the eating of eggs during Holy Week, but chickens continued to lay eggs during that week, and the notion of specially identifying those as “Holy Week” eggs brought about their decoration. The egg itself became a symbol of the Resurrection. Just as Jesus rose from the tomb, the egg symbolizes new life emerging from the eggshell. In the Orthodox tradition, eggs are painted red to symbolize the blood Jesus shed on the cross. In the United States, Easter egg hunts are popular among children, and in 1878 Lucy Hayes, the wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes, sponsored the first annual Easter egg roll on the White House lawn.