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Eggs - activities & traditions

An egg without salt, is like a kiss without a moustache. Duchas Schools Collection - Limerick

Pruchóg - a feast in a field

Long ago people used to start gathering eggs the week before Easter until they used have a big number gathered and then they to have called Pruchóg. Duchas Schools Project - Different things for April - Mayo.

A Pruchóg usually occurred on Easter Sunday. There was always great eating and drinking. Eggs were always eaten in big numbers at breakfast and tea. The children used to steal eggs from their parents for the feast in the field on Easter Sunday after dinner, hiding them in the house, ditch or hedge. They then made a fire in the field and cooked and ate the eggs.

Or they used to boil them in saucepans, and some of them very hard and then they used to go up to the top of a hill and fire downwards to see which of them would win the race. An addition would be to paint and decorate the eggs before rolling them.

The eggs laid on Holy Thursday are kept for Easter Sunday. There is always a little cross put on all these eggs. The people eat them on Easter morning. They are called Holy Thursday's eggs. Keep the eggs for Sunday - Duchas.ie

Egg Balancing

Stories have grown up around the equinox. It’s said you can balance an egg vertically on a flat surface, not on other days of the year. The theory goes that at this time of year the moon and earth are in exactly the right alignment, the celestial bodies generating the perfect balance of forces needed to make it possible.

The truth is that the amount of sunlight we get during the day has no power over the gravitational pull of the Earth or our abilities to balance things upon it. If you have the patience and a steady hand then you can balance an egg on it's end any day of the year.

Read more about Equinox here - Vernal Equinox and Equilux - Aligned Sites

Setting an Intention

Some phrases we came up with at a get-together in Fourknocks

Bloom where you are planted.
One day ...or day one... you decide.
Hope. Renewal. Light.
You can.
When nothing goes right, go left.
Look in the mirror. That’s your competition.		Life is short, buy the shoes.
Dust settles. You don’t.
A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.
Spring, a lovely reminder how beautiful change can be.
New beginnings.
Happy days.

Everyone brought hard-boiled eggs. In the centre was an empty basket, 3 chocolate eggs, a fluffy rabbit, a candle, angel cards and daffodils. We held our eggs and put our intentions for the coming year into them. Then we decorated them with colouring pens...

With our (hard boiled) eggs we held them and reflected on what we want to bring in and welcome into our lives, and whatever symbols came to mind, drawing them on the egg/eggs.

We put the eggs into the basket (the only time it’s good to put all your eggs into one basket!) and picked one (or two) out – being advised "you may not get the egg you put in, but whatever you get will be the appropriate one for you – trust it is so."

When we got home, they were planted in the garden to release the energy over the next while. Archive - 24 March 2018 - Fourknocks - Sunny Side Up

Walking a Spiral

2021 - Hello, Goodbye, the Light is on the Way

Susan's Plan:

I will make a spiral and in the middle I will place three eggs, (hard boiled!) and on each egg I will write words of encouragement such as, love, self confidence, hope, calmness. You can do this the night before and really think about what words have meaning for you at this time.

Martin reported:

I wrote the words Love, Completion and Solus (Irish for Light). And then it struck me that as it was Equinox and a time of balance that I write the opposite on the other side of the egg.

So I wrote; Fear, Deficient, and Dorchadas (Irish for darkness).

As I was going to walk the spiral and for practical reasons of sight I hunted for symbols that I could see (as I couldn't read the words on the eggs standing up and my memory is...... what's the word... deficient!)

So I walked the spiral and every time I came to a symbol on the path I talked to it. With the positive symbols it was easy and I was radiating love and light and completion. I felt really connected to the group and that the time delay was inconsequential.

The shadow side was more challenging but did make for interesting conversation.

3 Smiles

Asking what I should do to connect with this celebration my eye was drawn to a reel of thin jewellery wire. Ah, that's for the spiral. Except as I wound it round my finger I felt to make another and then realised it was to be 3 spirals. Ok. I wound clockwise and anti-clockwise.

Going into the kitchen I noticed the 3 owls block by the phone. Yes, they were to join in. (Afterwards I discovered that between 19 and 23 March there was an ancient Roman festival - Quinquatria - to the Goddess Minerva, whose totem was an owl.)

I picked the 3 eggs. What words? Smile. Just that. 3 Smiles.

And for my celebration food there was a heel of bread to finish and a new pot of Gooseberry jam to open. Great. Oh look! the jar has 3 gooseberries on it, no, looks like 3 but is actually 4. Hmmm...

I didn't get a chance to bury the eggs so put them in the fridge and later in the day it was great to open the door and see the 'smile' messages. NJ

Manifesting

The space was lit with candles and the four corners were represented in each hollow of Fourknocks and there was a lovely altar in the centre. We opened the circle calling in each element and the wiccans among us calling in the energies of Freya and Freyr to be with us as well. We put our eggs by the edge of the cloth on the ground, eggs being a symbol of fertility and also a symbol of what we want to bring to ourselves. Eggs of all sorts were there, cooked, porcelain, stone, plus chocolate ones but we didn't see them til after! Yum.

We then made a sigil (writing our our own phrase of something we want to manifest in our life, or a positive phrase, condensing the sentence down to a few letters and then making a symbol and drawing that on the
egg, which we could eat at our leisure.

Eggs (raw) can be used to draw negativity from a room, and then buried. Also ground shells can be used instead of salt to draw or mark out a circle, specially good if you are outside and don't want to harm the earth.

Archive - 20 March 2016 - Spring Equinox

Decorating

Sunday 5 May 2013 is Easter in the Coptic Church - Bernie in Egypt shared that they boiled an egg, painted it all colours making wishes then ate it, with music and dance after. They are celebrating Sham el Nessim spring festival of Easter Monday . The festival’s name translates to “smelling the breeze” because of the scent of the Spring air.

In the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches, Easter eggs are dyed red to represent the blood of Christ, with further symbolism being found in the hard shell of the egg symbolizing the sealed Tomb of Christ - the cracking of which symbolized his resurrection from the dead.

Eastern Christian followers believe painting eggs red originates with Mary Magdalene. Their legend is that she brought cooked eggs to share with the other women at the tomb of Jesus. When they saw the risen Christ the uneaten eggs turned bright red - another miracle.

Father helps the children paint beautiful designs on eggs dyed in various colors. These eggs, which will later be hidden and searched for, are placed into lovely, seasonal baskets.

This is a description of an ancient Babylonian family - 2,000 years before Christ - honouring the resurrection of their god, Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife, Ishtar (after whom the festival was named). Easter and Hocktide

Egg Shell Plant Pots

To honour spring and the planting of intentions we will sow seeds in egg shells knowing that, if they are attended to, they will flourish and blossom just like ourselves, if we take the time to nourish body and mind.

Recycling

Pancakes: Eggs for creation, flour sustenance or the staff of life, salt for wholesomeness and milk for purity.

Lots of eggs means you will be left with a lot of shells. These can be put into your food caddy; however, eggshells do have many uses:

Eggshells decompose in the compost pile and add valuable calcium and other minerals to the soil in the process.

Crushed eggshells can be scattered around your plants and flowers to help deter plant-eating slugs and snails without have to use eco-unfriendly pesticides.

Crushed eggshells can be kept in your kitchen sink strainer at all times. They trap additional solids and they gradually break up and help to naturally clean your pipes on their way down the drain.

Cracking Game

Tsougrisma is a Greek Game. Two people crack their eggs against each other and say “Christos anesti!” (“Christ has risen”) - “Alithos anesti!” (“He Truly Has”).

Each player holds a red egg, and one taps the end of their egg against the end of the other player’s egg. The goal is to crack the opponent’s egg without cracking yours, of course. The rule is that you start with the same ends, point to point. When one end is cracked, the winner uses the same end of their egg to try to crack the other undamaged end of the opponent’s egg. Greek Egg cracking

Here are some hints how to win - Winning the tapping game. Start with the right eggs, boiling, dyeing, cheat. "Every Greek family has one member who almost always wins this game, to accusations of their egg being made of wood. Get yourself a wooden one from a toy outlet and use that. No one will know unless you let them inspect it later."

Rolling

Q:- Four bottles of milk rolling down the hill, Without any corks on them and they will not spill.
Answer:- The cows four paps Duchas Schools Collection - Riddles from Cork

We’ll close the circle and thank the energies and the energies of Fourknocks and go out through the portal to greet the light and stretch into the sunlight... and roll the eggs down from the top of the mound if weather permits. 24 March 2018 - Fourknocks - Sunny Side Up

The White House Easter Egg Roll in Washington D.C. is believed to have started in 1814. It takes place on Easter Monday every year. Children gather on the White House lawn to roll eggs across the grass with wooden spoons, competing to see who can cross the finish line first. Kids taking part in the competition win Easter eggs and small prizes. The U.S. President and family, as well as a giant Easter bunny, watch the proceedings.