Easter on the Farm

How was Easter celebrated in the past? For this farm story I asked Resi Schafflinger from Kräuterplatzl Hinterschneeberg if she would like to write about her childhood on this topic.

Thank you for the lovely contribution and enjoy reading, Katharina from Zittrauerhof

“Easter, the beginning of the church year

Easter, the highest feast of Christians

Easter, the feast that after darkness and sorrow brings light and renewal, awakening (resurrection), new beginnings and joy.

Easter, the feast on the Sunday after the first full moon in spring, a feast of illumination

That is why Easter falls on a different date each year and belongs to the “movable” feast days of the church year, along with Ascension, Pentecost and Corpus Christi, which align their dates with the respective Easter feast.

Palm Sunday begins Holy Week and whoever sleeps longest is the “palm donkey”. I remember this week especially fondly, because I was allowed to help shape it even in earliest childhood in the time of “simple living” and then celebrate the great feast of Easter.

Of course as a small child I did not know what it was really about, you could not “Google” and surf the internet. In any case, on my parents’ small mountain farm, isolated and situated far above the village, it was a special week.

Those siblings who were big enough to walk to church and back were allowed to go to the palm blessing, there was no farm access road. One parent went along, there was already quarreling over who had the nicer palm bouquet.

As soon as the bouquet was blessed, you could no longer joke with it, it was holy. Once home, you walked around house and farm with it. One bouquet went into the field for a good harvest, one onto the attic to protect house and family, and one was always within reach when a heavy thunderstorm came, then a few palm catkins were burned in the stove. Since there was no river or stream near us, we did not need a bouquet to protect us and our animals from flooding.

Then the real Holy Week began. Everyone helped, the whole house was cleaned and scrubbed, otherwise the Easter bunny will not come, so it was said. It was a mystery why the bunny brings the eggs when the chickens laid them.

Almost every day someone went to church, because the Christian customs were lived very seriously by our parents. Finally came Maundy Thursday, when the eggs were dyed, naturally with onion skins and little herbs, which on our mountain farm were almost not yet to be found, especially when Easter was already at the end of March.

The eggs that our chickens laid on Maundy Thursday were only dyed on Holy Saturday, and on Easter Sunday each family member received a blessed Easter egg and with those we were also not allowed to do “egg-tapping”, because these were supposed to bring especially much luck and blessing.

Lent was taken very seriously. None of us children dared to cut off a piece of sausage. On Good Friday there was a fasting soup, because spinach was only available up at our place when it grew in the garden and was not bought. On Holy Saturday the whole Easter cleaning was finished.

Everything was so fresh and clean. Easter Sunday, while we were in church, the Easter bunny came and hid a small, modest nest for each child in the farthest corner and the searching was exciting and took quite some time.

Afterwards we ate together the blessed foods, such as eggs, bread, salt and Easter ham from our own production, which everyone enjoyed after the abstemious time. In the Easter nest there were also sweets, we as children were quite greedy for those.

On Easter Monday it was time for “godparent visiting”. The godchildren of the parents came to visit and it was always a cheerful day with good food and old communal games outdoors.

But the best memory of Easter for me was that the warm season came and in the unheated house at bedtime and waking up it was no longer so icy cold.

Since I left home, a large picture hangs in the parlor of the ancient farmhouse that no longer exists and I like to think back to the simplicity I was allowed to experience there. A lovely Easter to you, Resi Schafflinger”

Reading these lines from Resi, I find it especially lovely that many traditions that existed in the past are still lived in many farmhouses even now. Did you like the story? Warm greetings from the still wintry Gasteinertal. Katharina