In Sweden Easter means that the spring is finally in the air after a long and dark winter. Twigs are collected from birch trees that slowly awake from the winter and chicken eggs are painted in colourful designs. The twigs are put in big vases and dressed with colourful feathers.
Other Easter decorations include "påskkärringar" (a special kind of Eastern witches) that fly on a broom. The hearsay gives that all these "påskkärringar" are on their way by means of their booms heading to their annual meeting with the Devil at Blåkulla (eng. “The Blue Gables”).
Tradition also calls for the children to dress up as Easter witches with long skirts, colourful headscarves and painted red cheeks then they go from house to house in the neighbourhood giving away drawings in the hope of getting sweets in return. It is said to bring bad luck not to give these begging witches something to snack on to their way to the Devil. Most people obviously don’t like to take any chances with these witches but rather gather up with some extra candy to have at hand when they pay their visits.
The central role of the Easter witches gives a clear indication that the Swedish Easter traditions actually predate Christianity going back to the days when the Swedes were all pagans. Overall the Easter traditions is very much cross-cook where ancient ceremonies and beliefs have been incorporated and adopted into the more “modern” Christian context. The same kind of cross-cook is by the way very much the case for the Swedish Christmas traditions. Hence, even though Christianity has been the state religion for quite some time the beliefs held by the Swedish Vikings are still quite present in modern Sweden.
In fact, for most Swedes Easter has very little to do with Christianity or the death and uprising of Jesus. Rather, Easter is seen as an opportunity for family and friends to meet and feast on a traditional smörgåsbord of herring, cured salmon, potatoes, eggs in colourful designs, sausages, Jansson´s Temptation (potatoes, onion, anchovies and cream cooked in owen) and other kinds of food. Apart from the birch twigs you often find daffodil in vases on the dining table.
The children normally drink a special soda called “påskmust” whereas the adults drink beer and spiced schnapps. The children are also often given an Easter egg which is basically a two-pieced egg-shaped paper container with colourful decorations on the outside and absurd amounts of candy inside.
//
