Easter in Finland and Sweden

 

7 Unexpected Easter Traditions

Why hide eggs when you can hang them on a tree?

The Easter egg tree custom, pictured here in Saalfeld, Germany, has gained some ground in the United States. PICTURE ALLIANCE / MARTIN SCHUTT


IN MANY PARTS OF THE world, the Christian holiday of Easter is now synonymous with bunnies and chicks, chocolate and jelly beans, and the decorating and hiding of lots and lots of eggs. But Easter—marked in 2024 by Western Christians on March 31 and by Eastern Orthodox Christians on May 5—has also been a holiday of ball games (in medieval Europe) and tree decorating (1890s New York), and it remains a celebration of bread, in the form of Ukraine’s paska and England’s hot cross buns. Take the Atlas Obscura tour of under-appreciated Easter traditions, from the towering Arches of Bread in Italy to graveyard feasts of Georgia.

How Easter Egg Trees Almost Became an American Tradition
by Anne Ewbank, Senior Associate Editor, Gastro Obscura

In the spring of 1895, Louis C. Tiffany, of stained-glass and jewelry fame, held a lavish “Mayflower Festival” to benefit a local hospital. “Among the evening’s entertainments,” writes culinary historian Cathy K. Kaufman, “was an Easter egg tree, dazzling with different colored eggs.” This wasn’t unusual at the time. In the era before plastic eggs, many Americans carefully emptied whole eggs of their contents and colored them brightly for Easter, hanging them on tree branches with scraps of ribbon or thread.

Sicily’s Arches of Bread COURTESY LA CREATIVITA DI UN POPOLO
Every Easter, a Sicilian Town Builds a Cathedral Out of Bread
by Vittoria Traverso

For months each year, residents of San Biagio in Sicily team up to build life-size structures made of local herbs, cereals, and bread. This monumental display is both centuries old and one of Italy’s most fantastical traditions: the Arches of Bread.
Why Georgians Dine in Cemeteries for Orthodox Easter
by Helena Bedwell

Every year around Orthodox Easter, Georgian cemeteries fill with families drinking wine, nibbling on platters of sweet bread, and rolling eggs dyed a deep blood red. They cry, they offer sweet words of remembrance, and they eat. It’s all part of a longstanding Georgian tradition of dining with the dead every spring.

These paksa breads have been traditionally decorated for Easter. AMARTINIOUK/CC BY 3.0
The Powerful Symbolism of Ukraine’s Easter Bread
by Anne Ewbank, Senior Associate Editor, Gastro Obscura

It’s hard to imagine celebrating Easter, a holiday of spring and rebirth, in the middle of a war. But in Ukraine, bakers are still making their Easter breads, known as paska, with pride and defiance. Sweet, egg-laced breads are part of nearly every European country’s celebratory menu, especially around Easter, but Ukrainian bakers go all out, covering their breads with tiny, flour-y birds, braided shapes, and curved crosses, occasionally baking them into towering domes with lots of icing.
Remembering the Tansy, the Forgotten Easter Pancake of Centuries Past
by Natasha Frost

Almost every holiday comes with its own accompanying foodstuff. Easter treats seem self-evident: chocolate, eggs, and chocolate eggs. But for hundreds of years, the English ate something entirely different at Easter: a sweet, herbal concoction—somewhere between a pancake and an omelet—known as a tansy. It was green, herbal, and slightly toxic.

Sailors from HMS President with a hot cross bun at The Widow’s Son in 2017. COURTESY THE WIDOW’S SON
How This London Pub Got Its Buns Back for Easter
by Anne Ewbank, Senior Associate Editor, Gastro Obscura

Hanging hot cross buns from the ceiling has a long history in the United Kingdom. In ancient times, worshippers ate sweet buns marked with a cross to honor Eostre, the goddess of the dawn. When “Eostre” became “Easter,” the buns stuck around. Still today, the tradition continues in some London pubs.
The Lost Tradition of Playing Ball in Church to Celebrate Easter
by Sarah Laskow

In Auxerre Cathedral and other places of worship in northern France, on Easter Monday in the medieval era, clergy gathered around the church’s labyrinth, danced in a circle, and tossed a ball from person to person—a joyful celebration of Easter, with strict rules, that evolved from pagan rituals.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/unusual-easter-traditions?utm_source=Klaviyo&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%204%2F18&_kx=5NUd0ECXcR2A56kDnxNDX4mDpAl9Hq4_tu6O4QZHhsePre5w77_lfmNicDqLq9T1.UUnqkC

Easter lunch for mum - French style

 Mains

Coq au Vin - https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/coqauvin_10455   

Ratatouille -  https://www.fromachefskitchen.com/ratatouille/

Roast mini new potatoes in garlic

Asparagus with Butter caper dressing

French Style carrots - https://www.pardonyourfrench.com/vichy-carrots-french-style-glazed-carrots/

Pudding

Cheese and biscuits

Coffee and chocolates

Coconut macaroons - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/coconut-macaroons

Raspberry and almond tart - https://www.powerhungry.com/2021/08/04/vegan-no-crust-raspberry-tart/#wprm-recipe-container-23713

Photos but not mine as ate lunch before I realised!

Cŵn Annwn — Hounds of the Welsh Otherworld

 

Myths, Legends and Folklore.

Cŵn Annwn — Hounds of the Welsh Otherworld

First you hear them—

a sound like wind tearing through hollow trees, or wolves chasing the moon across a black sky.

Not howls. Not barking.

Something older.

Something that makes the bones stir before the ears do.

The Cŵn Annwn—the Hounds of the Otherworld—are not monsters.

They are not demons.

They are the heralds of passage, and the sound of the soul being noticed by something beyond the veil.

In Welsh mythology, they are the hunting hounds of Annwn, the Otherworld: a realm not of hellfire or torment, but of mystery, beauty, and silence. And yet, when these dogs run, it is always a warning.

---

A Hound, a Hunt, and the Edge of the Veil

The Cŵn Annwn are described as large, ghostly white dogs with burning red ears—a reversal of natural coloring, meant to signal their origin from another realm. In Celtic tradition, red was the color of the supernatural, of blood and battle, and of those who walked between the worlds.

They are said to travel the night skies, especially during the autumn and winter months, or near sacred liminal times like Samhain. The sound of their howls, according to folklore, grows quieter the closer they come—a cruel inversion that adds to their unease. To hear them loud and clear is safe. To hear them softly is a sign your name may be on the wind.

(MacKillop, 2004)

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Arawn and the Otherworld

The master of these hounds is often Arawn, the ruler of Annwn, who appears in the Welsh Mabinogion as a just and noble figure—not a devil, but a sovereign of the dead. In the First Branch of the Mabinogi, Pwyll, prince of Dyfed, encounters the hounds while hunting and is drawn into an exchange of roles with Arawn, ruling Annwn for a year in his stead.

The dogs are not evil. They are tools of passage, meant to gather souls or escort hunters of fate between worlds. But like many Otherworldly things, encountering them on the wrong side of the veil can bring madness or death.

(Bromwich & Evans, 1992)

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Sounds that Haunt the Hills

The hounds have left the myths and entered the moors. Reports of hearing ghostly hunting dogs at night—particularly in rural Wales, Cornwall, and the West Country—have persisted into the 20th and 21st centuries. In Devon, they echo in tales of the Yeth Hounds and Gabriel Hounds, likely evolved from the Cŵn Annwn myth.

But the Welsh version retains something deeper—a sacred eeriness, not just horror. The hounds are frightening not because they are savage, but because they remind us of the thinness of the world. They mark the moments when the curtain slips, and breath on the neck might not be a breeze.

(Briggs, 1976; Bord & Bord, 1980)

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Not Hellhounds—Heralds

Unlike hellhounds of later Christian lore, the Cŵn Annwn are not infernal. They do not drag souls to torment—they escort them to elsewhere. The fear they inspire is existential, not moral.

To see them may be to witness a death long in coming. To hear them may mean nothing. Or everything.

They are liminal by nature, like thresholds, grave mounds, or certain crossroads at twilight. And to encounter them is to remember:

you live not far from the Otherworld.

Only one breath away.

---

Sources & Further Reading (Group-safe — no URLs)

MacKillop, J. (2004). A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford University Press.

Bromwich, R., & Evans, D. S. (1992). The Mabinogion. Oxford University Press.

Briggs, K. (1976). A Dictionary of Fairies.

Bord, J., & Bord, C. (1980). The Secret Country: An Interpretation of the Folklore of Ancient Sites in the British Isles.

Wikipedia contributors. (2025, April). Cŵn Annwn. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Carrot Muffins from Jane's Patisserie

 

https://www.janespatisserie.com/2015/03/20/carrot-and-walnut-cupcakes/#wprm-recipe-container-15580

Ingredients

Cupcakes

• 125 ml sunflower oil
• 2 medium eggs (or large)
• 175 g grated carrots
• 125 g light brown sugar
• 175 g self raising flour
• 1.5 tsps mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 150 g unsalted butter (room temp)
• 150 g icing sugar
• 300 g full fat cream cheese (cold)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Decoration

• Chopped walnuts
• Carrot decorations

Instructions

Cupcakes

• Heat oven to 180C/160C fan, and line a muffin tray with 12 cupcake/muffin cases, or use 12 Iced Jems baking cups on a flat tray!
• Grate your carrots (peel first and chop the ends off), and leave to the side. You need 175g of grated carrot to be the weight at the end.
• Whisk together the sunflower oil and eggs.
• Add in the grated carrots and sugar, and mix again.
• Add in the flour, mixed spice, ground ginger, and cinnamon, and bicarbonate of soda!
• Try not to over mix it - I use a large glass bowl with a spatula.
• Split the mixture between the 12 cupcake cases, and bake in the oven for 20-22 minutes!    (I found they needed the 22 minutes in my oven)

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

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