April 2, 2015 • 42 mins
Happy Easter from Stuff You Should Know! Learn all about Easter, from its humble beginnings as a pagan holiday to the multi-billion dollar industry it is today. We'll cover the Biblical and religious aspects, along with the origins of some of Easter's greatest traditions.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you. Stuff you should know from how Stuff
Works dot com. Oh and middle d d welcome to
the podcast. Wow, I was giving the traditional Easter greeting,
I said, it isn't that how Mr Burns answered his phone? Yeah,
(00:25):
because that was what they did, like, you know when
the phone was first admitted, right, that was funny. I
said that for Actually my first cell phone said oh
boy on it when it was super advanced and you
could like program something on your home screen so that
would flash when somebody was calling you. Yeah, that's how
I tech. Yeah at the time, a little sprint flobone
(00:46):
brick phone. Yeah. Uh well, like I was saying, Happy Easter, Chuck.
Do you do anything for Easter these days? Not really? Yeah,
I mean we we got like a bath, get a
traditional Easter bass. Yeah, yeah, we do that. I mean
it's not like we just don't observe it at all,
(01:07):
Like like me. Have you noticed though, that like a
lot more stores close on Easter now than they used to?
I have not noticed. That seems to have been a
recent occurrence, like the last couple of years. I have noticed. Yeah,
it's a it's weird. I think it's not off putting
(01:29):
unless you're like trying to buy something, but it's more
just like, wait, when did this start? That's my whole thing, Right,
when did this start? Like you didn't get the memo,
no one asked, you know, And usually, you know, there's
a national conversation about whether to close stores or not.
We'll do an episode on it sometimes, that kind of thing.
But this one just slipped past me. So Easter has
(01:50):
caught me by surprise, or at least closing the stores
on it. Yeah, I don't do anything I used to,
you know, do the whole spiel when you're a little kid. Yeah,
of course, growing up and then the sunrise services. It's
a young Baptist. We would Climbstone Mountain. It was very pretty. Actually,
climbing some out in the dark wasn't so much fun.
I was always like, it's kind of dangerous. Well, there
(02:13):
were flashlights and plenty of people around. That's a good
thing about being in the church. They would pick you
up and carry you if you broke your leg. That's
why there was only one set of footsteps. That's right.
Oh yeah, Well, back when I was a kid, we
get the Easter basket with what one or two maybe
little presents in there I got the break into Electric
(02:33):
Boogaloo soundtrack on cassette. Did you really? Easter? Probably my
best Easter president of all time? Yeah. Yeah. And we
also observed the tradition of dressing up even more than
you would normally for Sunday Church, like your special Easter clothes,
like my pot on a tuxedo and like rub lobster
on it. No, it would usually be like, you know,
(02:56):
I got some new pinks of Spenders and well that's
actually like an old traditions of Spenders. Well no, but
like a new new Yeah, exactly, that's what I mean.
Did you realize that you were following like an ancient
Anglo tradition? Yeah, my mom taught me all about ancient
Anglow traditions. That was just Easter was just a little
more specials he would dress up a little more basically. Yeah,
(03:18):
I got you. You know, I got my new Uh Paisley,
did I have to bust out for Easter to go
with my mullet? Yeah? I'm not allowed to buy anything new,
but you makes me comb my hair before I'm allowed
to search for the Easter basket. Well that's nice. Uh, Well,
let's talk stuff. Yeah, I mean in researching this came
down to a couple of conclusions. One is that, like
(03:42):
everything else that we hold dear, it had its roots
and pagan rituals. And uh, two is the Easter, so
like it's all over the map, man, Like we could
do ten episodes on Easter, let's do it in different traditions,
and like when it falls a to who you are,
and it's just crazy in its variety. Agreed. Even like
(04:05):
when Jerry asked when she were stamish, she just wins Eastern.
We're like, who knows? Could be in March, could be
in April. The ecclesiastical Council knows because they're crunching the numbers.
Go ahead and drop the dope there, Okay, so um,
the dope is that Easter can conceivably fall any time
between March one, the the vernal equinox, and April, and
(04:32):
it follows after the Paschal moon, which is a full moon.
But if you think you're following along so far, prepared
to be thrown from the horse, because the Paschal full
moon isn't necessarily an actual full moon that you can see. Yeah,
it's not necessarily the astronomical full moon. No, it was
at one point in time based on astronomical lunar cycles,
(04:55):
but they have since been decoupled from what we currently understand,
and so now Easter supposedly falls on the first Sunday
after the Paschal moon, which is the first full moon
after the vernal equinox. That's right, but there may not
be a full moon anywhere in sight as far as
you can tell. But if you're a churchy type who's
(05:17):
in charge of crunching these numbers, you know when the
Paschal moon comes and goes and that's when MS will be.
Is that the same as the ecclesiastical moon? Is that
just another name for it? Yeah, the the Paschal moon
is a type of ecclesiastical moon, an ecclesiastical moon. Is
this church titious? Yeah, church based lunar cycle. Um that
in the Paschal moon in particular is the full moon
(05:40):
that comes after the vernal equinox. And Pascal comes from
the Greek for passover, so it's the Passover moon. And
that makes sense because Easter was originally tied to Passover.
It was first Sunday after Passover, right, Yeah. And then
in as part of the Gregorian calendar, Pope Gregory the
(06:02):
laid down the decree Ah but still it gets more
confusing because if you are Eastern Orthodox, you might follow
the Julianne Julianne julian calendar. It's the calendar that's slice
in a thin little ship's wrong with me calendar, and
that can be like a month later you'll be celebrating
(06:24):
Easter if you follow the Julianne calendar that was the
one that predated the Gregorian calendar. That's right, and there's
actually some really interesting stuff about those. We should do
one on calendar sometime. Oh man, it's so vast and weird. Yeah,
and I like to keep my calendar simple. Well yeah,
(06:44):
you know who doesn't. I mean, that's the point seven days, month,
twelve months, what else you need? Boom? You go further
out than that, it gets murky. Yeah. So again, we
have no idea when Easter falls this year, but we
can tell you for certain it will fall between March
one in April for all the reasons we just said
(07:07):
March twenty two, twenty first, which is the vernal equinox.
So there you go. All right, Um, So all of
this is to say that Easter, if you're not getting
the idea yet that we're using words like ecclesiastical and
a word that's derived from the Greek for Passover. Easter
(07:28):
is a very ancient tradition and custom in Christianity, but
it's not mentioned in the Bible. Um the whole crucifixion, death,
and resurrection of Jesus, which is what the Easter cello
Easter season is meant to commemory. It's all in there,
(07:48):
but they don't go and then now go forth and
celebrate this that's not in there, right, And that is
because it was co opted and absorbed by the Christian
Church from ancient even more ancient um pagan holidays and rituals. Well,
(08:08):
I think it initially was kind of like like they
celebrated it right around Passover. I think it was kind
of one of those things were like, hey, we've got
this thing, we're commemorating, uh at about the same time
you're used to commemorating Passover. So I know you're born
Jewish and your most gonna be disappointed, but come over
to the Christian side. And then later on when it
(08:30):
spread out into Europe, it kind of took on all
of the other stuff as well. Yeah, but you know,
even biblical scholars and and most historians will agree that
it was originally a pagan festival. Uh. And the word
Easter is from Saxon. The Saxon in origin e A
s t r a Estra the goddess of Spring, and
(08:54):
sacrifices were made in her honor around the same time
as Passover, like you were saying, and so by the
eight tree Anglo Saxon's basically co opted this name to
uh coincide with the celebration of Christ resurrection. Yeah boom,
And there's there was this article in The Guardian about
the pagan roots of Easter um and the author I
(09:16):
don't remember her name, but she basically says, like, you
can take it even further back than that, to like
Egypt and Mesopotamia and the if you've seen um Zeitgeist,
which I realized is not the most credible movie on
the planet, but it's interesting and there are some interesting
conclusions in comparisons drawn between resurrection myths of you know,
(09:38):
the Egyptians and the Mespotamians and others, and you know,
the ones that celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Christ.
And this author makes the case that like you can
take the origins of Easter that far back even but
then as it kind of went along and along and
a long, it just picked up. Local traditions are absorbed
or folded in local traditions until we have this Easter
(10:01):
that we understand today, which includes the Easter Bunny. And
the Easter Bunny apparently is born out of that pagan
ritual um, the fernal equinox ritual spring ritual for how
did you pronounce her name? The goddess of fertility and
and renewal. Oh yeah, est her symbol was the hair,
(10:29):
which became the rabbit, I guess, which are two different things,
by the way, Yes they are. And so nowadays we
have the Easter Bunny, which is a magical bunny that
can lay eggs. Yeah, and the Germanic of course, the
Germans always have their finger and everything, you know, like Chris,
Christmas and all these holidays. Um, they always have their
finger and everything. What does that even mean? Um? It
(10:52):
is said that Ostara healed a wounded bird she found
in the woods by changing it to a hair, and
it was still partially bird though, and the hair showed
its gratitude in return to the goddess by laying eggs
as gifts. So also, and like we said, there's while
people agree that it is pagan and origins, there are
many many stories and no one can settle on the
(11:15):
one saying no, it was ishtar right, But Star is
one of them that they think could have been the
original had had its roots there. Yeah. Now, if you're
a Christian um and you don't have like your hands
clamped to your ears and you're stomping your feet and
like go la la la really loud, right now, you're
probably saying, hold on, fellas, Yes, the Easter bunny not
(11:38):
Christian in origin. Um, the the Easter egg not necessarily
Christian in origin. Yes, there's a lot of pagan um
land rituals, natural nature rituals that are incorporated in But
if you take the whole thing back to the original
as far as Christianity goes, what the whole thing is
(11:58):
celebrating or observing is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
And so specific days over the Easter holiday have been
um set aside to commemorate this problem, this process that
took place about thirty c. Yeah, and even you know
(12:19):
historians that say now it's you know, pagan in origin
and it was maybe ishtar Um, they're not saying that
Christ wasn't a person who was crucified, and uh, they're
saying that they have. There were so many parallels that
all these things kind of became crunched together at one
(12:41):
point it was co opted. I'm trying to be respectful here,
you know, does that make sense? So like they're not
saying that it doesn't exist, but it was. It was
a pattern, widespread pattern, and Christians like just kind of
absorbed it. Well, yeah, it's a celebration part in this
Guardian article again, and I think it's also in Zeitgeist.
You can take it back even further before Mesopotamians and
(13:04):
Egyptians ever existed and say that there's legends of the
sun so and dying and then being resurrected um, and
that you could connect those things to the sun as
u n dying as winner sets in and then being
resurrected in the spring, and connecting that with being crucified
(13:25):
on the cross to the Southern Cross constellation. So these
are possibly very very ancient conceptions. Yeah, and many and
there were many, many stories of of of important people
dying and being resurrected and some were born in December. Right,
So if we have offended you we apologize. We weren't
trying to. As a matter of fact, we just did
(13:48):
a lot of tap d answering if you ask me. Yeah,
I mean, it's history. Sure. So we'll get back to
Easter in the Christian observance of Easter right after this.
(14:12):
So chuck where you're back. And like I said a
little while ago, Um, Easter in the Christian tradition commemorates
the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, right,
And so days are set aside to commemorate specific dates
and specific events in Christ's life, and they're actually believed,
(14:33):
at least by Christians and I think some historians as well,
to kind of closely resemble the days of the week
that these things happened. Yeah, I mean there's a whole
Easter season, you know. Yeah, So the Easter season is
technically forty six days long. And um, most people think, well,
Lent is the Easter season and it's forty days long. True,
(14:54):
But there are six Sundays in the Easter season, Easter
Sunday being the sixth one, and those are considered special
days where Lent doesn't apply. They exist outside of Lent
because they're meant to be celebratory masses. That's right, so
you technically don't have to observe your Lenten fast these days. Yeah,
and Lenten was the original Middle English um, which is
(15:16):
where lent came from. Meats spring. I thought it meant
I'm not eating chocolate right now, it might for some people.
Uh So let's talk about the season um Lent we
mentioned um six weeks. Well, let's back up a little bit.
Should we talk about Shrove Tuesday first? Yes, okay, you
might know it is fat Tuesday or Marty Gras, yeah,
(15:38):
which and I think fat Tuesday came from France when
they would eat all the fatty foods ahead of uh Lent. Right,
So basically that you know when you when you go
through Lent, what you what you're supposed to do is
sacrifice something or maybe many things, right, because you're commemorating
(15:58):
Jesus is fast forty days after being baptized and um,
practically speaking, back in the day, I guess Thomas Aquinas
and some of his buds decided that when you are
fasting for Lent, you're you're abstaining from animals that your
food that is killed, so you're not eating chicken or
(16:22):
duck or pig, cow, anything that you killed to eat.
They decide fish too. Don't get me started on fish. Uh,
And they decided that, Oh after thinking about this and
talking about and discussing it and having counsels, and finally
they came to a decree that not only is the
food that you have to kill forbidden food during Lent,
(16:45):
the products from those food are as well. So basically
they're saying, like, if you're a if you're an observant Christian,
you are you go vegan for the forty six days
or forty days of Lents. Right. Many people, though, just
choose embolically too, Like you said, I'm going to give
up chocolate, just something that they love. I'm gonna make
(17:06):
a sacrifice. I'm gonna give it up for Lent. Right.
But the point of Shrove Tuesday is this is the
last day before Lent. You don't want all this food
to go to waste, so you make a bunch of
stuff and you eat all of your supply and you
get fat, and then you go into the Lent season
of Lent fast. Right. Yeah, the UK, like, I've never
heard of Shrove Tuesday, but it's big in the UK
(17:28):
pancakes or the traditional meal because they contained fatty milk
and eggs and things like that. Yeah, and eggs are
forbidden because they're product of those animals you kill well
and stuff that would go bad over the next forty days.
So it's also a way to not waste your food.
And uh, it's the Tuesday before ash Wednesday, um, which
(17:49):
is next. So ash Wednesday is the first day of
the Lenten Fast, That's right, and um, basically it it
You're you're going into this fast and you are, um,
you're just kind of becoming uber Christian at that moment,
like you're taking on like just just just super Christian
(18:11):
persona and you're like it's very solemn. And to commemorate it,
you get a cross of ashes placed on your forehead
and the cross is made from the palm fronds from
last year's Palm Sunday service should be, which we'll talk
about later. But they save them, they burn them, and
they used the ash of these blessed fronds to put
(18:35):
crosses on the foreheads of the penitents the next Ash Wednesday. Yeah,
and the palm fronds are significant as the what they
used to um fan Jesus when he was resurrected. Correct, No,
when he wrote into Jerusalem on a donkey. And it
was when he wrote into Jerusalem triumphantly to take his
(18:57):
title as the King of Kings that they wave palm fronts. Yeah,
they're like Jesus is here. That's the impression I have
of the palm fronts. Um Man. I was really paying
attention in confirmation class. Um, so quickly, if you see someone,
if you're not very religious, if you see someone with
(19:17):
the ashes on their head, um, anytime in the spring,
don't say, hey, you've got something in your head. You
got a little uh yeah, don't do that. Yeah, because
it's there for a reason. Um. All right, where are
we now? We are at Lent. Yeah, so we're in
the middle of Lent. You're starting to think, wow, some
eggs would be great. I wish I had some shrove
(19:38):
cakes or anything made from an animal or animal itself.
Or you're not saying that. Maybe you're just fine with it. Yeah,
there's a lot of people who don't necessarily follow that
traditional vegan fast. Um, but we'll give up something for lent.
The chocolate candy. I always tried homework. It never worked. Um,
(19:59):
did you really. Yeah, Yeah, it's just jokingly, you know,
I'd be like, I'm gonna give up homework. Okay, I'm
never even growing up in the church, I never observed
Um maybe it was Baptist didn't observe it as much,
but I never observed Lent. It was big time Catholic,
especially with my family. It was like you gotta give
up something. So typically you'll give up chocolate, and you
(20:19):
give up chocolate and then when Easter Sunday comes along
and Len is over, yeah, you get chocolate all over
your face, which is actually following in a pretty old tradition,
because that's where Easter eggs came from the giving of
Easter eggs. It was a forbidden food that you couldn't
have during Lent. So then when Easter Sunday came, people
would give each other eggs as gifts, like, hey, enjoy
(20:42):
the heck out of this egg because you have an
ad one in forty days. Yeah, and the egg obviously
also being a symbol of um birth, new life, new life, spring,
pagan vernal rituals. Perhaps um so now we are at
Palm Sunday, that's right. And then, like we said, this
commemorates Jesus triumphantly coming into Jerusalem to claim his title,
(21:05):
and people wave palms to welcome him in. And then
so people have palm fronds at Palm Sunday services, and
remember they hang on to those and burn them and
use them for the next Easter is ash Wednesday. So
this is the last Sunday before Easter. I have palm
fronds in my yard. You should sell them to some Christians. Well,
it's going to give them away. Oh I guess you
(21:27):
could do that too. But last year's palm fronds are
now hanging dead on my palm tree. Well it's they
don't have to be a year old. It's just the
ones that were used during the Palm Sunday service. And
we're blessed last year, so they probably wouldn't want my palms.
I don't want year old palms. You want like fresh
ones for Palm Sunday. Yeah, but you want them to
(21:49):
be old for the following Ash Wednesday a year later.
That's right. And holy water I don't think we mentioned,
is used, uh with the ashes to put on the forehead.
Oh yeah, yeah, makes a little very important mostly like
a paste, charcoali paste. Okay, then we're at mondy Thursday. Yeah,
the wildly underrated Mandy Thursday. Um, why is it wildly underrated?
(22:12):
Because you never hear about it? It's true, you know,
I didn't know anything about it until we researched this. Yeah,
Monday spelling uh m a u n d y not
Monday Thursday, it'd be weird. Um. And a mond or
manned is a basket and they were used by fishermen
to put their fish in. So many many years ago
there was a fair held in Norwich or Norfolk today
(22:36):
and basically a big just sale where like a flea market,
and the fisherman would carry their what this flea market
associated with Easter's hilarious? Yeah it is people would sell
their wares, you know, or let's call it a not
a flea market, but what do you call it when
they have the farmer's market, like a farmer's market or
like a market. Yeah, but they were selling uff from
(23:00):
the farm. Yeah, but they also had like clothing and
stuff too, so it's a good point. Supermarket Okay, it's
a supermarket. Um. The fisherman obviously would put the fish
in their mom's and um that's basically where the name
came from. It's kind of that simple. Yeah, everybody would
(23:20):
just come together and um buy new clothes. You would
buy new clothes. And that's where the ancient tradition that
your mom had you follow with your pink suspenders. Something new.
The Easter bonnet, they believe, came from that too, new
little Easter dress or Easter shoes or something like that.
Having something new on Easter. Customarily you will buy that
(23:40):
on Mandy Thursday, or at the very least it came
out of the Mandy Thursday market from the old English,
that's right. And the other tradition we had was to
sneer at all the people who would show up for church,
who we never saw the rest of the year. Oh yeah,
we'd be like, oh, I remember that Eastern Christmas saw
him last Yeah, I saw him a few months ago.
There's whole sub soul of the subside of Christians that
(24:02):
are like Easter Christmas Christians. That's right. They just go
for the two big ones. I remember them. So you judge, huh,
I did so wrong? I cast the out. Are we
a good Friday yet? Fine? Please tell me we're a
good Friday? Um that day. Back in the ancient times,
(24:23):
the first two centuries. Good and God we're sort of synonymous.
And I guess is that where the word good comes from.
I would guess as a descriptor of God. Yes, they
couldn't be bothered to keep that second. Oh, en, that's right.
But Good Friday is the commemoration of the crucifixion on
the Cross, the actually day of crucifixion, and um, it
(24:45):
is somber, but they want to observe the peace and
not necessarily the sadness. All right, it's not supposed to
be a dave morning. No, no, it's but it's still somber.
I don't know how you put it. I remember Good
Friday messes. I can't quite describe the tone of them.
But yeah, it's not it's not you're not celebrating, but
you're also not. Um it's a little more serious though,
(25:07):
maybe yeah, okay, um. And it's just so interesting these
these days, these holy days during the Eastern season. You
learned so much because the whole thing is like this
happened this day, like on a Friday. They're pretty sure
that Christ was crucified on a Friday, because remember, the
(25:28):
Romans were in charge of actually executing him, and they
kept excellent records, so we have a pretty good idea
of all this stuff. Um. So you you just learned
so much like the Stations of the Cross, did you
guys do that? I don't think any Catholic church has
different places. They can be really elaborate, they can be
and staying glass, they can be just a little number
(25:49):
or something like that. It's the station of the Cross,
and it follows Christ's path while he's carrying the crucifix
and being tortured along the way up to cavalry. And um,
it's placed on the cross. And as you know, it's
all just just steeping, uh, this ancient tradition into you,
(26:10):
this young ankle kate, you know. But at the same time,
you know, if you're just paying attention, it's really interesting
historically as yeah. Um, and you learned it over and
over and over and over again because you hear the
same thing every Easter. Yeah. I think that's you know,
it's part of the ideas. You get it ingrained in
you so deeply. You know. Um, we should have just
(26:30):
called this former Baptist and former Catholic hang on by
the skin of their teeth. Well, let's keep everybody else
hanging and um, let's break before Easter. Huh yeah, alright, Chuck,
(26:56):
we're back. Let's get to the fun stuff. It's Easter,
that's right, Easter. So we said good Friday, isn't It's
not a day of morning, but it's a somber day.
Easter is the exact opposite of that. First of all,
we should say, yeah, it's Saturday. Off, Now it's Sunday,
Easter Sunday, and it's a day of celebration. Yeah, a
lot of fun. Um. You in your family, you might
(27:17):
have Easter egg hunts. I looked up the origin of
the hunt itself, and I couldn't find for sure, because
I don't think they know for sure. But there are
some historians who think they can trace it to Martin Luther,
the Protestant Christian reformer. He's supposedly the guy who invented
the Christmas tree. To wow, man, look at that got
(27:37):
a long legacy. Christmas tree and the Easter egg hunt?
How about that? Um? So East he supposedly definitely had
Easter egg hunts. Supposedly definitely um where he hid eggs,
men had eggs, and women and children would look for
the eggs. And they think it may be tied with
people looking and hunting for Jesus tomb um. But that
(28:01):
isn't verified because some you know, some of these traditions,
no one can trace back the exact origin. You know. Well, yeah,
but if it was Martin Luther, I mean that wasn't
too terribly long ago. Now that's a good point. You
mentioned eggs, uh, And we talked about eggs being a
symbol of newness and fertility and rebirth, and this goes
back to dyeing eggs. Goes back to ancient Egypt and
(28:24):
the Persians who would die eggs and exchange them with friends,
like you said, as a reminder of the resurrection. And
I guess, just to make a plain white or brown
egg look a little more fancy, they died him colorful. Yeah.
And so eggs are also customarily died red to to
symbolize the blood of Christ. They're also dyed green in
(28:47):
Germany and Austria. Yeah. I looked all over for this this.
The only reason I could find is that they're they're
meant to symbolize the bitter herbs that Christ was forced
to eat while he was on the cross. Interesting, pretty
pretty on collie, Huh. Yeah, But they I think in
Germany they still do that Thursdayday, Green Egg Day. I
(29:08):
should also give a shout out chuck to our slide
show on awesome Easter eggs. We'll definitely post that on
the podcast page. And scary Easter bunnies. Yeah, you had
a couple, look at easter ones. Will put those both
the good There are some scary easter bunnies out there. Um,
hot cross buns again, not a part of my Baptist upbringing. No,
(29:31):
did you guys have hot cross buns? No, that's pretty British.
And um, they had them in New Zealand. I've never
seen a reform in person until New Zealand. Yeah, yeah,
I haven't either. But yeah, apparently they're sweet buns. Yeah,
custom merrily baked and eaten and um, it's funny. Is
apparently is again an ancient pagan Anglo tradition to bake
(29:53):
sweet buns as an offering to the gods around the
vernal equinox for this ring festival. And I guess the
Christian Church said, uh, let's let's stop doing that again
and again and it didn't take in. Finally, like put
a cross on there, Okay, we'll kill you. Put a
cross on, So they put across on and now you
(30:14):
have hot cross buns. Well, supposedly the cross was there before,
but it didn't symbolize that because they baked the cake
in the form of a bowl for Zeus and there
was a cross to represent the horns. Yeah, but again,
let's like, let's make some changes to that. And uh
so hot cross buns are still a thing. I've never
eaten one though I haven't either, But apparently they're sweet.
(30:35):
Oh are they? Well? Yeah, like they are they sticky buns?
I don't think, but I think they're sweet. Okay, we'll
go good, all right. Uh And I think what I
thought was pretty interesting with some of the weird um
traditions around the world. They're weird because they're different. Yeah.
I mean when I say weird, I just mean unusual.
(30:56):
To me. Here's a big dummy peculiar. Yeah, nothing apparently
is weird about any of this. Uh. In Bulgaria they
had a little thing called egg tapping, but they still
do um. And it's basically like the old pencil game
used to play in elementary school, the old stab your
buddy in the arm with a pencil. Nope, When you
(31:17):
would play the pencil popper game when you would try
and break the other guy's pencil and they would try
to break yours. It's basically what you do with eggs.
You take hardboiled eggs and you tap the other person's egg,
hoping to crack their egg but not your own. And
you keep doing this until you get your egg cracked,
and then you're out. And the last person in Bulgaria
who has an uncracked egg is said to have, you know,
(31:40):
good good luck throughout the year prosperity. They get a
fifty gift card to long Horn Steaks. That's right. Um.
There's another cute Bulgarian tradition to chuck that where the grandmother,
while she's coloring eggs with the kids, will color one
red and have the kids come over and she rubs
it on their cheeks in order to bestow you know,
(32:01):
health and robustness to them, like rosy cheeks. Yeah, and
like the cutest thing you've ever heard. It's adorable, especially
if they're wearing pink suspenders at the time. That's right,
And especially if the dye is made from a non
toxic let them work their teeth is immediately fall out.
That would be no good, uh. In Mexico they have
(32:22):
another egg game. And uh, the way I see it
is they empty the egg of the yolk and the
and the white. You know how you can poke the
little holes and either end of an egg and blow
it out. And then they put um, I guess confetti
in there and then they smash them on each other's heads.
They blow the egg out and blow the confettian. Uh.
And I got one liner for everything you do. All right?
(32:43):
How about how about the US where we just have parades? Uh? Yeah,
I got nothing. You put me on the spot. Yeah,
parades here in the US and Atlantic City they've had
one for about a close to a hundred and fifty years. Now,
did you know that? No, I had no idea there's
an Easter parade. I'd want to see that. I know
(33:04):
that when I think about the New York one. There's
a New York Easter parade. Yeah. Um, I think Fifth
Avenue has an Easter parade. Oh yeah, yeah, I see that.
And Irving Berlin has a song called Easter Parade, and
of course the Big White House Easter roll. I knew
about this. I always thought it was just the Easter
egg hunt, though I didn't know about the Easter egg roll.
I think it's part of it where you rolling Easter
(33:24):
egg across the south flant of the White House. It's
kind of like track and field Day. No, that's the
egg toss. Well, the whole thing altogether. It's like a hunt.
There's like an egg roll, there's an egg toss. There's
celebrities around the USO tour that stopped by. It's like
field Day. George Clooney is there all right, given out
eggs and you get your commemorative egg do yeah. And
(33:47):
apparently it started out Congress had it um on the
Capitol and the President, well a specific President Rotherford B.
Hayes said no, this is the president's thing. Now we're
moving this to the White House, and then did yeah.
Announced just one of those things, sort of like the
sparing the turkey on Thanksgiving. This big press op is
what it is. Well, it's funny that you mentioned sparing
(34:08):
the turkey on Thanksgiving because there's this other tradition in
um in where is it, Haltan, Leicestershire, right in England,
and it's the opposite of sparing the turkey. So there's
a tradition in this little town that a wealthy woman
was spared from being gored to death by a bull
(34:29):
when a hair ran across its path and I guess
distracted the bowl or something. So for some reason, to
thank the hair, she deeded some of her land to
the local church and said, you can have this land,
but you have to make sure that all of the
parishioners and everyone in the town gets some hair pie
like pie made from one of these rabbit type things
(34:53):
that saved her life. That's the way to thank something
for saving your life. You and you're ancestors are gonna
end up in a meat pie that we're gonna make
every year for everybody. Yeah. Four pounds of flour, two
pounds of large two hairs, three pounds of onions, seven
pounds of potatoes and seasoning, and you have yourself a
(35:13):
deliciously disgusting hair pie. I think it sounds good. Yeah,
well I don't eat rabbit and stuff, so there or
meat pies. Really really, this takes a lot of boxes
for me. You mean I tried um. I can't remember
what it's called them. It was a type of meat
pie again in New Zealand, UM at McDonald's, and it
(35:34):
was like this, like cut up meat and gravy and
cheese like pop pie. Basically, it's what you call it.
It was so disgustingly good. Yeah, it tastes good though, Yeah,
but I felt in that McDonald's really bad about myself
with everybody. But it still tasted good. Do you know
what meat it was? Uh? They claimed beef. So it's
(35:58):
a beefy gravy, yes, with cheese in it. Yeah, so
it's delicious actually. Um. But then here's where it gets
really a little odd to me. To go along with
the hair pie, they have um, uh, something called the
bottle kicking, which is basically rugby with a beer kick. Yeah.
(36:21):
Three beer kigs, two of them are full of a
gallon of beer each. This is part of that wealthy
lady who deeded the land's request that not only did
you have to serve a meat pie to everybody, you
also had to give them as much ale as they wanted.
So all this is commemorated in a the making of
a hair pie by the people of this little town.
(36:42):
They carry it through the town up to St. Mark's
I believe it's St. Mark St Michael's Church, and um,
the I guess the priest, the local priest cuts the
pie up, hands it out to the crowd that takes
some of that pie over to another place that's called
hair Pie Bank, which is a not a bank, but
(37:03):
an embankment. It's like a procession. The ends there, and
that's where this bottle kicking match starts. Yeah, and it's
it's it's a couple of neighboring villages that basically battle
it out. And like we said, they're basically barrels of ale.
Like I think you said to have ale, one does not.
And you know, there's all the ceremony that goes into
(37:24):
the actual starting of the match, and then when the
match starts, it's a game of sort of rugby your
football if you're American, where you're trying, you know, you're
carrying this thing around, running with it, trying to get it,
kicking it, yeah, kicking it, running with it, doing whatever
you can to get it, handing it off to your
friends to uh to advance it forward with obstacles along
(37:44):
the way like fists. And this is another clear example
of Christianity co opting a pagan ritual because hair Pie
Bank is an old pagan place of worse. And if
this whole thing doesn't smack of pagan tradition, like pagan
(38:06):
festival games. I don't know what does. Plus the chairman,
the guy who's running the bottle kicking competition, is called
the Master of the Stow as t O w e oh.
I thought he was called the wicker man pretty much. Yeah,
all the started it's Stonehenge basically, but now it's an
inter tradition and the Master of the stow. Stow means
a place of worship among Anglo pagan's, so they still
(38:31):
even call him the Master of the Stow. It's been
dressed up that little, yeah, But they have a good
time and it's bizarre, and they they advanced the barrel
over to their the way the best I can see
is that to their to like the line of their village.
The property line of their village is like the end zone,
I guess. Then they drink it right, well, the winners
(38:52):
drink it in front of the losers, but just to
kind of make them sore and rub it. If I
know my friends over there, there's plenty of beer aside
from those two barrels right to go around. And then
the one sober person is in charge of collecting all
of the palm fronds from palm Sunday and storing them
until next year in that giant wicker man in my backyard. Well,
(39:15):
that's Easter, Chuck, that's Easter. If you want to know
more about Easter, you can type in those that word
in the search part of how Stuff Works dot com.
And since I said that, it's time for a listener, ma'am,
thank you Easter bunny. Boch boch. Remember that I'm gonna
call this um a little more on tea. I got
(39:35):
a couple of these actually in the coming weeks, because boy,
we've got some good feedback. People love their tea. Uh.
Greetings from Kyoto fellows. I'm a longtime listener. Um. I
actually started listening when I just moved to Japan and
didn't know anyone yet, so you guys kept me company.
It was really great to hear you talking about Macha
on your latest podcast about tea, because I had no
(39:56):
idea it was catching on state side here in Kyoto.
Macha flavored. Every ng is given. There's even a drink
made of Woolong tea and Macha liqueur um. Apparently, I
don't think she likes the look, war though she says
I live down the street from where one of the
three main schools of t CEREMONI used to be. Uh.
And while I'm here, I thought i'd add my two
cents about pronouncing Japanese words. Um, they're basically just five
(40:20):
foul sounds in Japanese. A is a long a like
ball rather than apple. I sounds like e. E sounds
like oh, sounds like oh as in rainbow. You sounds
like oh is in goo. And why is an a vowel?
It will always be connected to another vowel. Ah for
you to how about that? Okay? Uh? And she this
(40:43):
is Nikki. She's getting up for cherry blossom festival in Kyoto,
which I bet is gorgeous. And um she said, Josh
that if you ever venture out to Kyoto again, that
she would love to let you know some things that
you can do. And um, she says, I love the podcast.
You can't wait to the next one, And that is
(41:04):
Nicky Maller. Thanks a lot. Yeah, um, yeah, I can't
wait to see the cherry blossoms there. Deec has got
an amazing one too. Um. Yeah, it's beautiful, it's lovely trees.
Uh if and Chuck, I gotta tell you it makes
a lovely coffee. To Starbucks over in Okinawa had a
(41:24):
cherry blossom flavored coffee, which is this It's kind of
a made up sweet flavor, but it is so it's
not derived from the tree. I don't see how it
could be interesting, but it has like it fits perfectly.
You're like, yes, this is what an ideal cartoonist Japanese
version of the taste of cherry bossom would be. It's
(41:45):
perfect um. Anyway, if you want to get in touch
with us, you can tweet to us at s y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
emails to stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com
and has always joined us at at home on the
web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
(42:07):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
dot com.
Welcome to you. Stuff you should know from how Stuff
Works dot com. Oh and middle d d welcome to
the podcast. Wow, I was giving the traditional Easter greeting,
I said, it isn't that how Mr Burns answered his phone? Yeah,
(00:25):
because that was what they did, like, you know when
the phone was first admitted, right, that was funny. I
said that for Actually my first cell phone said oh
boy on it when it was super advanced and you
could like program something on your home screen so that
would flash when somebody was calling you. Yeah, that's how
I tech. Yeah at the time, a little sprint flobone
(00:46):
brick phone. Yeah. Uh well, like I was saying, Happy Easter, Chuck.
Do you do anything for Easter these days? Not really? Yeah,
I mean we we got like a bath, get a
traditional Easter bass. Yeah, yeah, we do that. I mean
it's not like we just don't observe it at all,
(01:07):
Like like me. Have you noticed though, that like a
lot more stores close on Easter now than they used to?
I have not noticed. That seems to have been a
recent occurrence, like the last couple of years. I have noticed. Yeah,
it's a it's weird. I think it's not off putting
(01:29):
unless you're like trying to buy something, but it's more
just like, wait, when did this start? That's my whole thing, Right,
when did this start? Like you didn't get the memo,
no one asked, you know, And usually, you know, there's
a national conversation about whether to close stores or not.
We'll do an episode on it sometimes, that kind of thing.
But this one just slipped past me. So Easter has
(01:50):
caught me by surprise, or at least closing the stores
on it. Yeah, I don't do anything I used to,
you know, do the whole spiel when you're a little kid. Yeah,
of course, growing up and then the sunrise services. It's
a young Baptist. We would Climbstone Mountain. It was very pretty. Actually,
climbing some out in the dark wasn't so much fun.
I was always like, it's kind of dangerous. Well, there
(02:13):
were flashlights and plenty of people around. That's a good
thing about being in the church. They would pick you
up and carry you if you broke your leg. That's
why there was only one set of footsteps. That's right.
Oh yeah, Well, back when I was a kid, we
get the Easter basket with what one or two maybe
little presents in there I got the break into Electric
(02:33):
Boogaloo soundtrack on cassette. Did you really? Easter? Probably my
best Easter president of all time? Yeah. Yeah. And we
also observed the tradition of dressing up even more than
you would normally for Sunday Church, like your special Easter clothes,
like my pot on a tuxedo and like rub lobster
on it. No, it would usually be like, you know,
(02:56):
I got some new pinks of Spenders and well that's
actually like an old traditions of Spenders. Well no, but
like a new new Yeah, exactly, that's what I mean.
Did you realize that you were following like an ancient
Anglo tradition? Yeah, my mom taught me all about ancient
Anglow traditions. That was just Easter was just a little
more specials he would dress up a little more basically. Yeah,
(03:18):
I got you. You know, I got my new Uh Paisley,
did I have to bust out for Easter to go
with my mullet? Yeah? I'm not allowed to buy anything new,
but you makes me comb my hair before I'm allowed
to search for the Easter basket. Well that's nice. Uh, Well,
let's talk stuff. Yeah, I mean in researching this came
down to a couple of conclusions. One is that, like
(03:42):
everything else that we hold dear, it had its roots
and pagan rituals. And uh, two is the Easter, so
like it's all over the map, man, Like we could
do ten episodes on Easter, let's do it in different traditions,
and like when it falls a to who you are,
and it's just crazy in its variety. Agreed. Even like
(04:05):
when Jerry asked when she were stamish, she just wins Eastern.
We're like, who knows? Could be in March, could be
in April. The ecclesiastical Council knows because they're crunching the numbers.
Go ahead and drop the dope there, Okay, so um,
the dope is that Easter can conceivably fall any time
between March one, the the vernal equinox, and April, and
(04:32):
it follows after the Paschal moon, which is a full moon.
But if you think you're following along so far, prepared
to be thrown from the horse, because the Paschal full
moon isn't necessarily an actual full moon that you can see. Yeah,
it's not necessarily the astronomical full moon. No, it was
at one point in time based on astronomical lunar cycles,
(04:55):
but they have since been decoupled from what we currently understand,
and so now Easter supposedly falls on the first Sunday
after the Paschal moon, which is the first full moon
after the vernal equinox. That's right, but there may not
be a full moon anywhere in sight as far as
you can tell. But if you're a churchy type who's
(05:17):
in charge of crunching these numbers, you know when the
Paschal moon comes and goes and that's when MS will be.
Is that the same as the ecclesiastical moon? Is that
just another name for it? Yeah, the the Paschal moon
is a type of ecclesiastical moon, an ecclesiastical moon. Is
this church titious? Yeah, church based lunar cycle. Um that
in the Paschal moon in particular is the full moon
(05:40):
that comes after the vernal equinox. And Pascal comes from
the Greek for passover, so it's the Passover moon. And
that makes sense because Easter was originally tied to Passover.
It was first Sunday after Passover, right, Yeah. And then
in as part of the Gregorian calendar, Pope Gregory the
(06:02):
laid down the decree Ah but still it gets more
confusing because if you are Eastern Orthodox, you might follow
the Julianne Julianne julian calendar. It's the calendar that's slice
in a thin little ship's wrong with me calendar, and
that can be like a month later you'll be celebrating
(06:24):
Easter if you follow the Julianne calendar that was the
one that predated the Gregorian calendar. That's right, and there's
actually some really interesting stuff about those. We should do
one on calendar sometime. Oh man, it's so vast and weird. Yeah,
and I like to keep my calendar simple. Well yeah,
(06:44):
you know who doesn't. I mean, that's the point seven days, month,
twelve months, what else you need? Boom? You go further
out than that, it gets murky. Yeah. So again, we
have no idea when Easter falls this year, but we
can tell you for certain it will fall between March
one in April for all the reasons we just said
(07:07):
March twenty two, twenty first, which is the vernal equinox.
So there you go. All right, Um, So all of
this is to say that Easter, if you're not getting
the idea yet that we're using words like ecclesiastical and
a word that's derived from the Greek for Passover. Easter
(07:28):
is a very ancient tradition and custom in Christianity, but
it's not mentioned in the Bible. Um the whole crucifixion, death,
and resurrection of Jesus, which is what the Easter cello
Easter season is meant to commemory. It's all in there,
(07:48):
but they don't go and then now go forth and
celebrate this that's not in there, right, And that is
because it was co opted and absorbed by the Christian
Church from ancient even more ancient um pagan holidays and rituals. Well,
(08:08):
I think it initially was kind of like like they
celebrated it right around Passover. I think it was kind
of one of those things were like, hey, we've got
this thing, we're commemorating, uh at about the same time
you're used to commemorating Passover. So I know you're born
Jewish and your most gonna be disappointed, but come over
to the Christian side. And then later on when it
(08:30):
spread out into Europe, it kind of took on all
of the other stuff as well. Yeah, but you know,
even biblical scholars and and most historians will agree that
it was originally a pagan festival. Uh. And the word
Easter is from Saxon. The Saxon in origin e A
s t r a Estra the goddess of Spring, and
(08:54):
sacrifices were made in her honor around the same time
as Passover, like you were saying, and so by the
eight tree Anglo Saxon's basically co opted this name to
uh coincide with the celebration of Christ resurrection. Yeah boom,
And there's there was this article in The Guardian about
the pagan roots of Easter um and the author I
(09:16):
don't remember her name, but she basically says, like, you
can take it even further back than that, to like
Egypt and Mesopotamia and the if you've seen um Zeitgeist,
which I realized is not the most credible movie on
the planet, but it's interesting and there are some interesting
conclusions in comparisons drawn between resurrection myths of you know,
(09:38):
the Egyptians and the Mespotamians and others, and you know,
the ones that celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Christ.
And this author makes the case that like you can
take the origins of Easter that far back even but
then as it kind of went along and along and
a long, it just picked up. Local traditions are absorbed
or folded in local traditions until we have this Easter
(10:01):
that we understand today, which includes the Easter Bunny. And
the Easter Bunny apparently is born out of that pagan
ritual um, the fernal equinox ritual spring ritual for how
did you pronounce her name? The goddess of fertility and
and renewal. Oh yeah, est her symbol was the hair,
(10:29):
which became the rabbit, I guess, which are two different things,
by the way, Yes they are. And so nowadays we
have the Easter Bunny, which is a magical bunny that
can lay eggs. Yeah, and the Germanic of course, the
Germans always have their finger and everything, you know, like Chris,
Christmas and all these holidays. Um, they always have their
finger and everything. What does that even mean? Um? It
(10:52):
is said that Ostara healed a wounded bird she found
in the woods by changing it to a hair, and
it was still partially bird though, and the hair showed
its gratitude in return to the goddess by laying eggs
as gifts. So also, and like we said, there's while
people agree that it is pagan and origins, there are
many many stories and no one can settle on the
(11:15):
one saying no, it was ishtar right, But Star is
one of them that they think could have been the
original had had its roots there. Yeah. Now, if you're
a Christian um and you don't have like your hands
clamped to your ears and you're stomping your feet and
like go la la la really loud, right now, you're
probably saying, hold on, fellas, Yes, the Easter bunny not
(11:38):
Christian in origin. Um, the the Easter egg not necessarily
Christian in origin. Yes, there's a lot of pagan um
land rituals, natural nature rituals that are incorporated in But
if you take the whole thing back to the original
as far as Christianity goes, what the whole thing is
(11:58):
celebrating or observing is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
And so specific days over the Easter holiday have been
um set aside to commemorate this problem, this process that
took place about thirty c. Yeah, and even you know
(12:19):
historians that say now it's you know, pagan in origin
and it was maybe ishtar Um, they're not saying that
Christ wasn't a person who was crucified, and uh, they're
saying that they have. There were so many parallels that
all these things kind of became crunched together at one
(12:41):
point it was co opted. I'm trying to be respectful here,
you know, does that make sense? So like they're not
saying that it doesn't exist, but it was. It was
a pattern, widespread pattern, and Christians like just kind of
absorbed it. Well, yeah, it's a celebration part in this
Guardian article again, and I think it's also in Zeitgeist.
You can take it back even further before Mesopotamians and
(13:04):
Egyptians ever existed and say that there's legends of the
sun so and dying and then being resurrected um, and
that you could connect those things to the sun as
u n dying as winner sets in and then being
resurrected in the spring, and connecting that with being crucified
(13:25):
on the cross to the Southern Cross constellation. So these
are possibly very very ancient conceptions. Yeah, and many and
there were many, many stories of of of important people
dying and being resurrected and some were born in December. Right,
So if we have offended you we apologize. We weren't
trying to. As a matter of fact, we just did
(13:48):
a lot of tap d answering if you ask me. Yeah,
I mean, it's history. Sure. So we'll get back to
Easter in the Christian observance of Easter right after this.
(14:12):
So chuck where you're back. And like I said a
little while ago, Um, Easter in the Christian tradition commemorates
the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, right,
And so days are set aside to commemorate specific dates
and specific events in Christ's life, and they're actually believed,
(14:33):
at least by Christians and I think some historians as well,
to kind of closely resemble the days of the week
that these things happened. Yeah, I mean there's a whole
Easter season, you know. Yeah, So the Easter season is
technically forty six days long. And um, most people think, well,
Lent is the Easter season and it's forty days long. True,
(14:54):
But there are six Sundays in the Easter season, Easter
Sunday being the sixth one, and those are considered special
days where Lent doesn't apply. They exist outside of Lent
because they're meant to be celebratory masses. That's right, so
you technically don't have to observe your Lenten fast these days. Yeah,
and Lenten was the original Middle English um, which is
(15:16):
where lent came from. Meats spring. I thought it meant
I'm not eating chocolate right now, it might for some people.
Uh So let's talk about the season um Lent we
mentioned um six weeks. Well, let's back up a little bit.
Should we talk about Shrove Tuesday first? Yes, okay, you
might know it is fat Tuesday or Marty Gras, yeah,
(15:38):
which and I think fat Tuesday came from France when
they would eat all the fatty foods ahead of uh Lent. Right,
So basically that you know when you when you go
through Lent, what you what you're supposed to do is
sacrifice something or maybe many things, right, because you're commemorating
(15:58):
Jesus is fast forty days after being baptized and um,
practically speaking, back in the day, I guess Thomas Aquinas
and some of his buds decided that when you are
fasting for Lent, you're you're abstaining from animals that your
food that is killed, so you're not eating chicken or
(16:22):
duck or pig, cow, anything that you killed to eat.
They decide fish too. Don't get me started on fish. Uh,
And they decided that, Oh after thinking about this and
talking about and discussing it and having counsels, and finally
they came to a decree that not only is the
food that you have to kill forbidden food during Lent,
(16:45):
the products from those food are as well. So basically
they're saying, like, if you're a if you're an observant Christian,
you are you go vegan for the forty six days
or forty days of Lents. Right. Many people, though, just
choose embolically too, Like you said, I'm going to give
up chocolate, just something that they love. I'm gonna make
(17:06):
a sacrifice. I'm gonna give it up for Lent. Right.
But the point of Shrove Tuesday is this is the
last day before Lent. You don't want all this food
to go to waste, so you make a bunch of
stuff and you eat all of your supply and you
get fat, and then you go into the Lent season
of Lent fast. Right. Yeah, the UK, like, I've never
heard of Shrove Tuesday, but it's big in the UK
(17:28):
pancakes or the traditional meal because they contained fatty milk
and eggs and things like that. Yeah, and eggs are
forbidden because they're product of those animals you kill well
and stuff that would go bad over the next forty days.
So it's also a way to not waste your food.
And uh, it's the Tuesday before ash Wednesday, um, which
(17:49):
is next. So ash Wednesday is the first day of
the Lenten Fast, That's right, and um, basically it it
You're you're going into this fast and you are, um,
you're just kind of becoming uber Christian at that moment,
like you're taking on like just just just super Christian
(18:11):
persona and you're like it's very solemn. And to commemorate it,
you get a cross of ashes placed on your forehead
and the cross is made from the palm fronds from
last year's Palm Sunday service should be, which we'll talk
about later. But they save them, they burn them, and
they used the ash of these blessed fronds to put
(18:35):
crosses on the foreheads of the penitents the next Ash Wednesday. Yeah,
and the palm fronds are significant as the what they
used to um fan Jesus when he was resurrected. Correct, No,
when he wrote into Jerusalem on a donkey. And it
was when he wrote into Jerusalem triumphantly to take his
(18:57):
title as the King of Kings that they wave palm fronts. Yeah,
they're like Jesus is here. That's the impression I have
of the palm fronts. Um Man. I was really paying
attention in confirmation class. Um, so quickly, if you see someone,
if you're not very religious, if you see someone with
(19:17):
the ashes on their head, um, anytime in the spring,
don't say, hey, you've got something in your head. You
got a little uh yeah, don't do that. Yeah, because
it's there for a reason. Um. All right, where are
we now? We are at Lent. Yeah, so we're in
the middle of Lent. You're starting to think, wow, some
eggs would be great. I wish I had some shrove
(19:38):
cakes or anything made from an animal or animal itself.
Or you're not saying that. Maybe you're just fine with it. Yeah,
there's a lot of people who don't necessarily follow that
traditional vegan fast. Um, but we'll give up something for lent.
The chocolate candy. I always tried homework. It never worked. Um,
(19:59):
did you really. Yeah, Yeah, it's just jokingly, you know,
I'd be like, I'm gonna give up homework. Okay, I'm
never even growing up in the church, I never observed
Um maybe it was Baptist didn't observe it as much,
but I never observed Lent. It was big time Catholic,
especially with my family. It was like you gotta give
up something. So typically you'll give up chocolate, and you
(20:19):
give up chocolate and then when Easter Sunday comes along
and Len is over, yeah, you get chocolate all over
your face, which is actually following in a pretty old tradition,
because that's where Easter eggs came from the giving of
Easter eggs. It was a forbidden food that you couldn't
have during Lent. So then when Easter Sunday came, people
would give each other eggs as gifts, like, hey, enjoy
(20:42):
the heck out of this egg because you have an
ad one in forty days. Yeah, and the egg obviously
also being a symbol of um birth, new life, new life, spring,
pagan vernal rituals. Perhaps um so now we are at
Palm Sunday, that's right. And then, like we said, this
commemorates Jesus triumphantly coming into Jerusalem to claim his title,
(21:05):
and people wave palms to welcome him in. And then
so people have palm fronds at Palm Sunday services, and
remember they hang on to those and burn them and
use them for the next Easter is ash Wednesday. So
this is the last Sunday before Easter. I have palm
fronds in my yard. You should sell them to some Christians. Well,
it's going to give them away. Oh I guess you
(21:27):
could do that too. But last year's palm fronds are
now hanging dead on my palm tree. Well it's they
don't have to be a year old. It's just the
ones that were used during the Palm Sunday service. And
we're blessed last year, so they probably wouldn't want my palms.
I don't want year old palms. You want like fresh
ones for Palm Sunday. Yeah, but you want them to
(21:49):
be old for the following Ash Wednesday a year later.
That's right. And holy water I don't think we mentioned,
is used, uh with the ashes to put on the forehead.
Oh yeah, yeah, makes a little very important mostly like
a paste, charcoali paste. Okay, then we're at mondy Thursday. Yeah,
the wildly underrated Mandy Thursday. Um, why is it wildly underrated?
(22:12):
Because you never hear about it? It's true, you know,
I didn't know anything about it until we researched this. Yeah,
Monday spelling uh m a u n d y not
Monday Thursday, it'd be weird. Um. And a mond or
manned is a basket and they were used by fishermen
to put their fish in. So many many years ago
there was a fair held in Norwich or Norfolk today
(22:36):
and basically a big just sale where like a flea market,
and the fisherman would carry their what this flea market
associated with Easter's hilarious? Yeah it is people would sell
their wares, you know, or let's call it a not
a flea market, but what do you call it when
they have the farmer's market, like a farmer's market or
like a market. Yeah, but they were selling uff from
(23:00):
the farm. Yeah, but they also had like clothing and
stuff too, so it's a good point. Supermarket Okay, it's
a supermarket. Um. The fisherman obviously would put the fish
in their mom's and um that's basically where the name
came from. It's kind of that simple. Yeah, everybody would
(23:20):
just come together and um buy new clothes. You would
buy new clothes. And that's where the ancient tradition that
your mom had you follow with your pink suspenders. Something new.
The Easter bonnet, they believe, came from that too, new
little Easter dress or Easter shoes or something like that.
Having something new on Easter. Customarily you will buy that
(23:40):
on Mandy Thursday, or at the very least it came
out of the Mandy Thursday market from the old English,
that's right. And the other tradition we had was to
sneer at all the people who would show up for church,
who we never saw the rest of the year. Oh yeah,
we'd be like, oh, I remember that Eastern Christmas saw
him last Yeah, I saw him a few months ago.
There's whole sub soul of the subside of Christians that
(24:02):
are like Easter Christmas Christians. That's right. They just go
for the two big ones. I remember them. So you judge, huh,
I did so wrong? I cast the out. Are we
a good Friday yet? Fine? Please tell me we're a
good Friday? Um that day. Back in the ancient times,
(24:23):
the first two centuries. Good and God we're sort of synonymous.
And I guess is that where the word good comes from.
I would guess as a descriptor of God. Yes, they
couldn't be bothered to keep that second. Oh, en, that's right.
But Good Friday is the commemoration of the crucifixion on
the Cross, the actually day of crucifixion, and um, it
(24:45):
is somber, but they want to observe the peace and
not necessarily the sadness. All right, it's not supposed to
be a dave morning. No, no, it's but it's still somber.
I don't know how you put it. I remember Good
Friday messes. I can't quite describe the tone of them.
But yeah, it's not it's not you're not celebrating, but
you're also not. Um it's a little more serious though,
(25:07):
maybe yeah, okay, um. And it's just so interesting these
these days, these holy days during the Eastern season. You
learned so much because the whole thing is like this
happened this day, like on a Friday. They're pretty sure
that Christ was crucified on a Friday, because remember, the
(25:28):
Romans were in charge of actually executing him, and they
kept excellent records, so we have a pretty good idea
of all this stuff. Um. So you you just learned
so much like the Stations of the Cross, did you
guys do that? I don't think any Catholic church has
different places. They can be really elaborate, they can be
and staying glass, they can be just a little number
(25:49):
or something like that. It's the station of the Cross,
and it follows Christ's path while he's carrying the crucifix
and being tortured along the way up to cavalry. And um,
it's placed on the cross. And as you know, it's
all just just steeping, uh, this ancient tradition into you,
(26:10):
this young ankle kate, you know. But at the same time,
you know, if you're just paying attention, it's really interesting
historically as yeah. Um, and you learned it over and
over and over and over again because you hear the
same thing every Easter. Yeah. I think that's you know,
it's part of the ideas. You get it ingrained in
you so deeply. You know. Um, we should have just
(26:30):
called this former Baptist and former Catholic hang on by
the skin of their teeth. Well, let's keep everybody else
hanging and um, let's break before Easter. Huh yeah, alright, Chuck,
(26:56):
we're back. Let's get to the fun stuff. It's Easter,
that's right, Easter. So we said good Friday, isn't It's
not a day of morning, but it's a somber day.
Easter is the exact opposite of that. First of all,
we should say, yeah, it's Saturday. Off, Now it's Sunday,
Easter Sunday, and it's a day of celebration. Yeah, a
lot of fun. Um. You in your family, you might
(27:17):
have Easter egg hunts. I looked up the origin of
the hunt itself, and I couldn't find for sure, because
I don't think they know for sure. But there are
some historians who think they can trace it to Martin Luther,
the Protestant Christian reformer. He's supposedly the guy who invented
the Christmas tree. To wow, man, look at that got
(27:37):
a long legacy. Christmas tree and the Easter egg hunt?
How about that? Um? So East he supposedly definitely had
Easter egg hunts. Supposedly definitely um where he hid eggs,
men had eggs, and women and children would look for
the eggs. And they think it may be tied with
people looking and hunting for Jesus tomb um. But that
(28:01):
isn't verified because some you know, some of these traditions,
no one can trace back the exact origin. You know. Well, yeah,
but if it was Martin Luther, I mean that wasn't
too terribly long ago. Now that's a good point. You
mentioned eggs, uh, And we talked about eggs being a
symbol of newness and fertility and rebirth, and this goes
back to dyeing eggs. Goes back to ancient Egypt and
(28:24):
the Persians who would die eggs and exchange them with friends,
like you said, as a reminder of the resurrection. And
I guess, just to make a plain white or brown
egg look a little more fancy, they died him colorful. Yeah.
And so eggs are also customarily died red to to
symbolize the blood of Christ. They're also dyed green in
(28:47):
Germany and Austria. Yeah. I looked all over for this this.
The only reason I could find is that they're they're
meant to symbolize the bitter herbs that Christ was forced
to eat while he was on the cross. Interesting, pretty
pretty on collie, Huh. Yeah, But they I think in
Germany they still do that Thursdayday, Green Egg Day. I
(29:08):
should also give a shout out chuck to our slide
show on awesome Easter eggs. We'll definitely post that on
the podcast page. And scary Easter bunnies. Yeah, you had
a couple, look at easter ones. Will put those both
the good There are some scary easter bunnies out there. Um,
hot cross buns again, not a part of my Baptist upbringing. No,
(29:31):
did you guys have hot cross buns? No, that's pretty British.
And um, they had them in New Zealand. I've never
seen a reform in person until New Zealand. Yeah, yeah,
I haven't either. But yeah, apparently they're sweet buns. Yeah,
custom merrily baked and eaten and um, it's funny. Is
apparently is again an ancient pagan Anglo tradition to bake
(29:53):
sweet buns as an offering to the gods around the
vernal equinox for this ring festival. And I guess the
Christian Church said, uh, let's let's stop doing that again
and again and it didn't take in. Finally, like put
a cross on there, Okay, we'll kill you. Put a
cross on, So they put across on and now you
(30:14):
have hot cross buns. Well, supposedly the cross was there before,
but it didn't symbolize that because they baked the cake
in the form of a bowl for Zeus and there
was a cross to represent the horns. Yeah, but again,
let's like, let's make some changes to that. And uh
so hot cross buns are still a thing. I've never
eaten one though I haven't either, But apparently they're sweet.
(30:35):
Oh are they? Well? Yeah, like they are they sticky buns?
I don't think, but I think they're sweet. Okay, we'll
go good, all right. Uh And I think what I
thought was pretty interesting with some of the weird um
traditions around the world. They're weird because they're different. Yeah.
I mean when I say weird, I just mean unusual.
(30:56):
To me. Here's a big dummy peculiar. Yeah, nothing apparently
is weird about any of this. Uh. In Bulgaria they
had a little thing called egg tapping, but they still
do um. And it's basically like the old pencil game
used to play in elementary school, the old stab your
buddy in the arm with a pencil. Nope, When you
(31:17):
would play the pencil popper game when you would try
and break the other guy's pencil and they would try
to break yours. It's basically what you do with eggs.
You take hardboiled eggs and you tap the other person's egg,
hoping to crack their egg but not your own. And
you keep doing this until you get your egg cracked,
and then you're out. And the last person in Bulgaria
who has an uncracked egg is said to have, you know,
(31:40):
good good luck throughout the year prosperity. They get a
fifty gift card to long Horn Steaks. That's right. Um.
There's another cute Bulgarian tradition to chuck that where the grandmother,
while she's coloring eggs with the kids, will color one
red and have the kids come over and she rubs
it on their cheeks in order to bestow you know,
(32:01):
health and robustness to them, like rosy cheeks. Yeah, and
like the cutest thing you've ever heard. It's adorable, especially
if they're wearing pink suspenders at the time. That's right,
And especially if the dye is made from a non
toxic let them work their teeth is immediately fall out.
That would be no good, uh. In Mexico they have
(32:22):
another egg game. And uh, the way I see it
is they empty the egg of the yolk and the
and the white. You know how you can poke the
little holes and either end of an egg and blow
it out. And then they put um, I guess confetti
in there and then they smash them on each other's heads.
They blow the egg out and blow the confettian. Uh.
And I got one liner for everything you do. All right?
(32:43):
How about how about the US where we just have parades? Uh? Yeah,
I got nothing. You put me on the spot. Yeah,
parades here in the US and Atlantic City they've had
one for about a close to a hundred and fifty years. Now,
did you know that? No, I had no idea there's
an Easter parade. I'd want to see that. I know
(33:04):
that when I think about the New York one. There's
a New York Easter parade. Yeah. Um, I think Fifth
Avenue has an Easter parade. Oh yeah, yeah, I see that.
And Irving Berlin has a song called Easter Parade, and
of course the Big White House Easter roll. I knew
about this. I always thought it was just the Easter
egg hunt, though I didn't know about the Easter egg roll.
I think it's part of it where you rolling Easter
(33:24):
egg across the south flant of the White House. It's
kind of like track and field Day. No, that's the
egg toss. Well, the whole thing altogether. It's like a hunt.
There's like an egg roll, there's an egg toss. There's
celebrities around the USO tour that stopped by. It's like
field Day. George Clooney is there all right, given out
eggs and you get your commemorative egg do yeah. And
(33:47):
apparently it started out Congress had it um on the
Capitol and the President, well a specific President Rotherford B.
Hayes said no, this is the president's thing. Now we're
moving this to the White House, and then did yeah.
Announced just one of those things, sort of like the
sparing the turkey on Thanksgiving. This big press op is
what it is. Well, it's funny that you mentioned sparing
(34:08):
the turkey on Thanksgiving because there's this other tradition in
um in where is it, Haltan, Leicestershire, right in England,
and it's the opposite of sparing the turkey. So there's
a tradition in this little town that a wealthy woman
was spared from being gored to death by a bull
(34:29):
when a hair ran across its path and I guess
distracted the bowl or something. So for some reason, to
thank the hair, she deeded some of her land to
the local church and said, you can have this land,
but you have to make sure that all of the
parishioners and everyone in the town gets some hair pie
like pie made from one of these rabbit type things
(34:53):
that saved her life. That's the way to thank something
for saving your life. You and you're ancestors are gonna
end up in a meat pie that we're gonna make
every year for everybody. Yeah. Four pounds of flour, two
pounds of large two hairs, three pounds of onions, seven
pounds of potatoes and seasoning, and you have yourself a
(35:13):
deliciously disgusting hair pie. I think it sounds good. Yeah,
well I don't eat rabbit and stuff, so there or
meat pies. Really really, this takes a lot of boxes
for me. You mean I tried um. I can't remember
what it's called them. It was a type of meat
pie again in New Zealand, UM at McDonald's, and it
(35:34):
was like this, like cut up meat and gravy and
cheese like pop pie. Basically, it's what you call it.
It was so disgustingly good. Yeah, it tastes good though, Yeah,
but I felt in that McDonald's really bad about myself
with everybody. But it still tasted good. Do you know
what meat it was? Uh? They claimed beef. So it's
(35:58):
a beefy gravy, yes, with cheese in it. Yeah, so
it's delicious actually. Um. But then here's where it gets
really a little odd to me. To go along with
the hair pie, they have um, uh, something called the
bottle kicking, which is basically rugby with a beer kick. Yeah.
(36:21):
Three beer kigs, two of them are full of a
gallon of beer each. This is part of that wealthy
lady who deeded the land's request that not only did
you have to serve a meat pie to everybody, you
also had to give them as much ale as they wanted.
So all this is commemorated in a the making of
a hair pie by the people of this little town.
(36:42):
They carry it through the town up to St. Mark's
I believe it's St. Mark St Michael's Church, and um,
the I guess the priest, the local priest cuts the
pie up, hands it out to the crowd that takes
some of that pie over to another place that's called
hair Pie Bank, which is a not a bank, but
(37:03):
an embankment. It's like a procession. The ends there, and
that's where this bottle kicking match starts. Yeah, and it's
it's it's a couple of neighboring villages that basically battle
it out. And like we said, they're basically barrels of ale.
Like I think you said to have ale, one does not.
And you know, there's all the ceremony that goes into
(37:24):
the actual starting of the match, and then when the
match starts, it's a game of sort of rugby your
football if you're American, where you're trying, you know, you're
carrying this thing around, running with it, trying to get it,
kicking it, yeah, kicking it, running with it, doing whatever
you can to get it, handing it off to your
friends to uh to advance it forward with obstacles along
(37:44):
the way like fists. And this is another clear example
of Christianity co opting a pagan ritual because hair Pie
Bank is an old pagan place of worse. And if
this whole thing doesn't smack of pagan tradition, like pagan
(38:06):
festival games. I don't know what does. Plus the chairman,
the guy who's running the bottle kicking competition, is called
the Master of the Stow as t O w e oh.
I thought he was called the wicker man pretty much. Yeah,
all the started it's Stonehenge basically, but now it's an
inter tradition and the Master of the stow. Stow means
a place of worship among Anglo pagan's, so they still
(38:31):
even call him the Master of the Stow. It's been
dressed up that little, yeah, But they have a good
time and it's bizarre, and they they advanced the barrel
over to their the way the best I can see
is that to their to like the line of their village.
The property line of their village is like the end zone,
I guess. Then they drink it right, well, the winners
(38:52):
drink it in front of the losers, but just to
kind of make them sore and rub it. If I
know my friends over there, there's plenty of beer aside
from those two barrels right to go around. And then
the one sober person is in charge of collecting all
of the palm fronds from palm Sunday and storing them
until next year in that giant wicker man in my backyard. Well,
(39:15):
that's Easter, Chuck, that's Easter. If you want to know
more about Easter, you can type in those that word
in the search part of how Stuff Works dot com.
And since I said that, it's time for a listener, ma'am,
thank you Easter bunny. Boch boch. Remember that I'm gonna
call this um a little more on tea. I got
(39:35):
a couple of these actually in the coming weeks, because boy,
we've got some good feedback. People love their tea. Uh.
Greetings from Kyoto fellows. I'm a longtime listener. Um. I
actually started listening when I just moved to Japan and
didn't know anyone yet, so you guys kept me company.
It was really great to hear you talking about Macha
on your latest podcast about tea, because I had no
(39:56):
idea it was catching on state side here in Kyoto.
Macha flavored. Every ng is given. There's even a drink
made of Woolong tea and Macha liqueur um. Apparently, I
don't think she likes the look, war though she says
I live down the street from where one of the
three main schools of t CEREMONI used to be. Uh.
And while I'm here, I thought i'd add my two
cents about pronouncing Japanese words. Um, they're basically just five
(40:20):
foul sounds in Japanese. A is a long a like
ball rather than apple. I sounds like e. E sounds
like oh, sounds like oh as in rainbow. You sounds
like oh is in goo. And why is an a vowel?
It will always be connected to another vowel. Ah for
you to how about that? Okay? Uh? And she this
(40:43):
is Nikki. She's getting up for cherry blossom festival in Kyoto,
which I bet is gorgeous. And um she said, Josh
that if you ever venture out to Kyoto again, that
she would love to let you know some things that
you can do. And um, she says, I love the podcast.
You can't wait to the next one, And that is
(41:04):
Nicky Maller. Thanks a lot. Yeah, um, yeah, I can't
wait to see the cherry blossoms there. Deec has got
an amazing one too. Um. Yeah, it's beautiful, it's lovely trees.
Uh if and Chuck, I gotta tell you it makes
a lovely coffee. To Starbucks over in Okinawa had a
(41:24):
cherry blossom flavored coffee, which is this It's kind of
a made up sweet flavor, but it is so it's
not derived from the tree. I don't see how it
could be interesting, but it has like it fits perfectly.
You're like, yes, this is what an ideal cartoonist Japanese
version of the taste of cherry bossom would be. It's
(41:45):
perfect um. Anyway, if you want to get in touch
with us, you can tweet to us at s y
s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an
emails to stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com
and has always joined us at at home on the
web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on
(42:07):
this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works
dot com.
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