Swedish Easter Wizard?

[MauEvig]

It seems the Easter Bunny folklore originated in Germany, much like the lore of Santa Claus, and was wide spread throughout the world.

However, I thought it should be noted, and as Halloween fans, that according to a wiki article about the Easter Bunny and it's origins, when the Easter Bunny tradition was introduced to Sweden, that the Swedish word for "Easter Bunny" in pronunciation sounded similar to "Easter Man" or "Easter Wizard", and thus they have an Easter Wizard bringing eggs, and still today in Sweden, children dress up as witches at Easter time. Yes witches!

When I read that, I just had to share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Bunny for reference.

[Andybev01]

My Ultra conservative Christian family Would have a heart attack If I showed up to Easter brunch In a wizard costume

' Swedish Easter Wizard' Would be a great name for a rock band.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Well you have to admit, a wizard costume is more a Halloween tradition here in the United States then an Easter one, but that was very interesting the way the Sweedish people do that.

Mike

[MauEvig]

I know for a fact my grandparents would Andy!

Indeed, it does seem to be more of a Halloween tradition here. It seems different cultures do different things.

Yet many have similar themes, like a spring time festival, fall, winter, summer etc as well as a death day celebration, or in the case of Japan it lasts for a week.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Many holidays are celebrated differently in other countries then they are here in the United States. Even Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October instead of November, and no other country that I know of celebrates Thanksgiving at all. I don't even think Mexico, or any of the central or South American countries have a Thanksgiving.

Mike

[MauEvig]

Maybe not, but doesn't Europe have Guy Fawkes day?

I guess it would make sense that other countries would have holidays that we did not, and we would have holidays that other countries didn't.

Though the United States does take great lengths to adopt holiday traditions from other cultures. At the college I used to go to for example, they lit off fireworks for Chinese New Year. Many in the United State also celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

[Pumpkin_Man]

We have a huge Cynco De Mayo at the college where I work. It's the Mexican's answer to St. Patrick's Day. They also celebrate Chinese News Years in Chicago's China Town.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

My Ultra conservative Christian family Would have a heart attack If I showed up to Easter brunch In a wizard costume

' Swedish Easter Wizard' Would be a great name for a rock band.

I think I've heard that Cinco de Mayo (sp?) gets celebrated more in the U.S. than in Mexico, where it is more of a regional holiday.

Guy Fawlkes, of course, has nothing at all to do with Thanksgiving. It is a cultural memory of the Jacobean Gun Powder Plot, when people thought Roman Catholics (led by GF, I guess) were trying to blow up the British Houses of Parliament. With its bonfires, its burning Guy Fawlkes in effigy, and its door-to-door begging "a penny for the guy," it has had more in common with Halloween than anything else.

I'm pretty sure the Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving because we do. They got the idea from us, but set it in October since their growing season is shorter. For us, Thanksgiving was a type of harvest festival that (some) people in England (probably religious dissenters) had been celebrating for some time. It became institutionalized for us, I suppose, because we were a nation founded by many people who had fled here to escape religious persecution.

[Pumpkin_Man]

The pilgrims who came to America from England where being persecuted for their religion, which is why they boarded the May Flower. They where puritans, and the puritan religion had a tradition of celebrating a religious 'Feast of Thanksgiving." The puritan 'Feast of Thanksgiving,' was not held at any certain time of the year. They celebrated them every time they felt they had something to be thankful for to God. The first one celebrated in America was memorable, because the settlers had just gotten through a horrible Winter, epidemics, near starvation and a serious lack of living space. So when the Native Americans helped them through the crises, and taught them how to grow corn, the harvest came in good, and they declared it a 'Feast of Thanksgiving,' and the turkey, which is indigidious to America, was introduced to the pilgrims for the very first time.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

Yes, that is true. When I lived in Virginia, though, I learned that some people there believe there was an even earlier Thanksgiving festival at the Jamestown settlement. The Pilgrims have gotten all the press.

[Pumpkin_Man]

Thanksgiving feasts were very common in Puritan society, so I wouldn't be surprised. I think the reason why the pilgrims of the May Flower got al the press, as you say, is because they had a wonderful Fall harvest, despite horrendous hard ships they faced, and they made friends with the Native Americans.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

True. I also suspect it helped that the publishing houses were more in the Northeast than the South, and they publicized their own region more.

[Pumpkin_Man]

The North East was settled long before the South was. In fact, the 13 original colonies is often referred to as New England.

Mike

[Murfreesboro]

Well, the cities developed first up North, but Virginia was actually the first permanent English settlement--Jamestown, 1607.

The Pilgrims got blown off-course. They hadn't intended to land so far north. They were trying to get to Virginia (although my understanding is that, in those days, the colony of VA extended pretty far north, so they were really trying to get to the Hudson Valley, I think).

The South tended to have better farmland and a better climate, so it developed agriculturally.

If the 13 original colonies were ever referred to as "New England," that would just mean that they all belonged to England to begin with. Most of those 13 colonies were in what we would call the South, or mid-Atlantic states, today.

[Pumpkin_Man]

I didn't know that. When I think of New England, I usually think of states like Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire.

Mike