There is a piece of German farming folklore about Easter that tells us:
Wenn zu Ostern die Sonne scheint,
sitzt der Bauer am Speicher und weint
When at Easter the Sun shines,
The farmer sits in his barn and cries
Which could be true for the farmers of Germany, but not for the children who have spent the days leading up to the Easter holiday colouring and decorating eggs to hang on Eieren Baum, Egg trees, or whose Easter Sunday is occupied with their long anticipated Easter Egg Hunt. Rushing around trying to find where Der Osterhase the Easter rabbit, who is even more elusive than the Christkind, has left their chocolate, marzipan, sugar and coloured hen's eggs. Or perhaps the traditional cardboard Easter egg decorated with Easter rabbits or chickens, which reveals a small present when its halves are separated.
The weeks before Easter and das Osterfest are filled with its most easily recognised symbol, the egg, and many of the artist's creations to be seen at the Easter Markets throughout Germany are not just 'painted eggs' but miniature works of art, on every type of egg from Quail to Ostrich.
There are also beaded, batik, crazy quilt, dried flower covered eggs and more, all of which are usually put on show hanging from Easter Trees, as part of centre pieces or surrounded by feathers in baskets. Together with masses of spring flowers, especially daffodils, or Osterglocken Easter bells as they are known in Germany, and themed local arts and crafts, the 'designer' egg displays ensure the booths are a riot of colour.
But whether it arrives late or early in the Spring an Easter in Germany, Ostern in Deutschland, is always colourful. German homes and gardens are often decorated for the festival and one way is with an Osterstrauch, an Easter tree, cut 'pussy or corkscrew willow' or flowering twigs placed inside the home or trees and bushes in the garden, which are decorated with eggs that have been emptied out through a small hole in the shell, dyed, marbled, decorated or painted with designs and hung from ribbons.
In some areas of Germany Osterbrunnen, Easter Fountains and Wells, a tradition celebrating the life giving importance of water, is still followed, and carefully hollowed egg shells left from cookery expeditions in the kitchen are collected throughout the year.
These are hand painted, strung into garlands together with swathes of evergreen branches and after Palm Sunday, topped by a crown or an arch, are used to festoon fountains in villages or towns, giving the Easter Markets an even more festive air and they remain, decorating the fountains, for a week after Easter.
It is not easy to imagine an Easter without eggs. Originally a pagan symbol of earth's rebirth as spring arrives, becoming a Christian symbol of Christ's resurrection from the dead and believed to represent the boulder rolled away from his tomb, now a tradition that uses coloured eggs as decorations.
However originally there was a practical reason behind the custom, eggs that had been cooked to stay fresh longer during Lent needed to be differentiated from those that had not, and over the years the colours began to take on different meanings.
Yellow was for Inspiration and Wisdom, Red the Martyrdom of Jesus, White - Purity, Green - Hope, New Beginnings, Innocence and Youth, and Orange for Strength, Persistence, Warmth and Ambition. In some areas of the country even the colour of the first egg found during the Easter egg hunt is important, blue is unlucky, while red should bring three days of good luck.
It is a custom throughout Germany that children, and many adults, decorate hollowed out white eggs with designs, faces, flowers, chicks, rabbits, using water colours, felt tip pens, pieces of paper, fabric, shells or beads, or one of the special packets of paints and egg decorating kits that are on sale at every supermarket leading up to Easter.
While colour experiments with ingredients from around the home are also fun. Boiling white eggs in slightly vinegary water with spinach turns them green, onion skins give brown shells, turmeric colours them yellow, using beetroot juice they end up deep red, and it might be considered a 'cold unlucky' colour but blueberry juice makes a beautiful blue. While wrapping uncooked eggs tightly in a small piece of thin muslin, in which a few flat leaves such a parsley or grass have been placed, and then boiling them, leaves behind a leaf shaped pattern and once cold the coloured eggs can be polished to a shine with cooking oil.
These coloured gekochte Eier, boiled eggs, are used both to eat and to decorate the Easter morning breakfast table, sometimes in the centre of a plaited sweet bread 'nest', Osterkranz Easter Wreath, while decorated hollowed out eggs are given as gifts or added to the Easter tree.
And continuing with the egg theme Falsche Hase, False Hare, is often on the table, a traditional recipe from the days when meat was scarce in the years immediately after WW II but still popular today. Basically it is a meatloaf, sometimes shaped to resemble a rabbit, with a boiled egg hidden inside.
As they were forbidden during Lent in early Christian days, eggs were a highly anticipated delicacy forty days later and, even though few follow the strict Lenten rules in today's Germany, eggs in all their forms still play a starring role in the country's Easter celebrations.
Frohe Ostern - Happy Easter
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