Last week, many of us celebrated the joy of Christ’s Resurrection. In many families, people baked Easter bread and decorated eggs.
Quite a few articles and books have been written about the manufacturing techniques, patterns, and other characteristics of Sloboda Ukraine pysanka. Today, however, I’d like to touch on a far more interesting topic—the legends and beliefs of our region associated with Easter traditions.
There is a great deal of information on this topic in the excellent works of past researchers, such as: N. F. Sumtsov’s *Pysanky* (1891), V. V. Ivanov’s *The Life and Art of the Peasants of the Kharkiv Governorate. Starobil’s’k District” (Vol. 1, 1898), and P. V. Ivanova’s *The Life and Beliefs of the Peasants of Kup’yans’k District* (1907).
Let’s start with the fact that eggs were dyed on Good Friday. As for the pysanky, people began preparing them from the very first days of Holy Week.
However, P. V. Ivanov writes something different in his study: “Easter eggs are prepared on Saturday because eggs dyed on Friday spoil quickly, while those dyed on Saturday last throughout the entire Christmas season.”
There is an interesting theory about the origin of the word “pysanka” based on Sloboda Ukraine legends. Since pysanky were created to commemorate the Savior’s suffering—for example, in the village of Arapovka in the Kup’yans’k District, it was believed that the word derives from the fact that Christ’s entire body was flogged with whips, or “popysaly.”
The people of Sloboda Ukraine purchased some of the dyes for Easter eggs—such as red and blue sandalwood—in shops. Not everyone could afford such a purchase, so many made their own dyes from materials at hand. Yellow or brownish-red colors were obtained from the bark of the sorrel tree, onion skins, yellow buttercup flowers, and apple tree bark. Blue was made from buckwheat chaff and dried blue mallow flowers. Green dye was made from snowdrops. Black dye came from alder bark and young black maple leaves. Before dyeing, the eggs were “galunized,” that is, immersed in a solution of alum. Interestingly, attitudes toward the color black in Sloboda Ukraine were not always unequivocally positive. In the same Starobil’s’k District, people were advised not to dye eggs black, as it was believed that black-dyed eggs resembled the blood of the devil (an evil spirit). Eggs dyed red, on the other hand, symbolize the blood of the Savior.
The Easter eggs themselves were believed to possess significant healing, cosmetic, and protective properties. At that time, as we know, there were no miraculous anti-aging creams. Therefore, in the city of Kup’yans’k, for example, when preparing for matins on Bright Sunday, people would place two Easter eggs and a small coin in the bowl of water they used to wash their faces. Then, after washing their faces with this water, they would take the painted eggs and the coin with them to church and, upon leaving, give them to the poor. All of this was done to preserve health and beauty. For the same purpose, some young women would “roll” their faces with Easter eggs. In the settlement of Preobrazhennaya, however, after washing their faces with water in which a painted egg had been soaking (which, as we already know, possessed healing properties), they would throw the egg into the river to the water nymphs and drowned souls. But this is not the only belief in the Sloboda Ukraine region associated with the otherworldly inhabitants of the rivers. For example, due to their unique properties, the shells of painted eggs were never thrown out of the house. They were burned in the stove or taken to the river. However, before throwing them into the water, people would crush them in their hands so that no whole halves remained. This was done because it was believed that mermaids could later ride down the river on such eggshells. Apparently, by depriving the river’s evil spirits of their means of transportation, one could hope that these harmful creatures would leave the area.
Easter eggs were also believed to help in the fight against witches. In our lands, there were a number of interesting beliefs on this subject. For example, it was believed that if you stayed in church all night at Easter with a painted egg in your pocket, and then listened to the morning service and the Mass without dozing off, the egg would not spoil. And if you stayed in church with that same egg for 20 years, it would enable you to see all the witches who would inevitably try to get their hands on it. Well, I don’t know how well a twenty-year-old egg would help you recognize a witch, but it would certainly scare her away—along with all the other parishioners.
In the same (Kup’yans’k) district, it was believed that the first pair of eggs removed from the dye during the procession of the Shroud into the church, as well as the first egg obtained on Easter, possessed unique fire-extinguishing properties. After all, if you saved them and carried them three times around a burning building, the fire would immediately go out on its own. According to another belief, to put out a fire, it was enough to simply toss the egg over the flames. Though, I’m not sure the firefighters would have agreed with that method…
The first painted egg produced could also be used in the apiary. It was believed that if it were placed under the first hive, the bees would swarm endlessly. In the village of Svatova Luchka, it was believed that this same first painted egg protected against bee stings, as well as against fever, jaundice, and indeed all illnesses and the evil eye. Speaking of fever, when it could not be cured by any medical means, a painted egg that had been in the church on the night before Easter Sunday was hung around the patient’s neck.
In some parts of our region, it was customary for each family to bless only thirteen eggs at Easter—one for each of the twelve apostles and the Savior. Upon returning from church, one egg was set aside. After the family had broken their fast, the head of the household would take it and go to the animals, tracing a cross on their backs with that very thirteenth egg while saying, “Christ is risen.” It was believed that this would protect the animals from various illnesses in the future.
In other villages, the Easter eggs were shared among family members, but a portion was always set aside to be given to the poor.
Apparently, the seals were quite lazy back then and did a very poor job of fulfilling their duties. Otherwise, painted eggs and their shells would not have been considered in Sloboda Ukraine an excellent remedy for protecting bread from mice. According to folk beliefs, if you placed them under four sheaves of new grain arranged in a cross, no rodents would threaten the grain stores. Incidentally, along with the Easter eggs (or their shells), the bones of an Easter piglet and horseradish blessed with the Easter cake were placed under the sheaves for the same purpose (presumably to enhance the effect).
In the Sloboda Ukraine region, it was also customary to bury Easter eggs in the ground in the fields, “so that the harvest would be plentiful and nothing would be wasted.”
There were also plenty of beliefs and traditions associated with cemeteries and painted eggs (pisanki) in our beautiful region. For example, it was customary to visit graves with painted eggs and exchange the sign of the cross with one’s deceased loved ones there. However, the specific days for this could vary among residents of different communities. In some places, this might take place on the first day of Easter, while in others—on the second. The Easter eggs brought there were buried either in the cemetery itself or directly in the grave. The next day, they were dug up and distributed either to the poor or to children. According to popular belief, if all the painted eggs were still in place and intact, the soul of the deceased was pleasing to God; but if a dog or someone else had dug them up, the soul was displeasing to God, and it was unclear how to help it. It was also believed that if a painted egg—given by the first person to exchange the Easter greeting—was placed on the grave, the deceased would hear everything said to him. In the settlement of Kabanaya, for example, as late as the early 20th century, people believed that the soul of the deceased would eat a red egg left on his grave. This belief may have been connected to the fact that the townspeople brought eggs of precisely this color to the church for blessing.
The legends and superstitions of our beautiful homeland hold many interesting and fascinating stories. Thanks to these tales, we can still learn today how our ancestors lived, what they believed in, and how they thought. And what could be more interesting than our own history?
