Easter in Full Swing

“So high, the highest Hemp”

-‘Big Hemp’ Slavic Easter song

Family around the swing, 1890’s

Easter in Full Swing

Across the world families wake Easter morning to hunt for eggs with a huge meal to follow, sliding smoothly into that nice food coma. Moving outside into the yard to enjoy the nice spring weather, many families unknowingly include one of humanities ancient Hemp traditions…

The swing…

Family around swing, early 1900’s

To discover the origins of a holiday still celebrated throughout the world today, we need to look at its ancient ‘roots’.

Dating back to at least the Pagan festival of ‘Eastra’, celebrating the goddess of spring and coinciding with the spring equinox, the holiday was a ancient festival celebrating the end of hemp sowing season.

This ancient Easter party would last 4 days, much like it still does in Slavic villages throughout Europe.

On the morning of the first day of the festival a ancient tradition would take place, the shooing of the birds…

‘A farmer sows his seed while his dog chases birds which are eating from the bag of seed’, Drawing dating from 1100

Armed with brooms, shovels or other imposing objects, villagers would run around their farms with a hoot and a holler scaring away all the birds from the fields and house. Many believe the birds symbolized evil and illness, thus must go in a spring cleaning but this act most likely stemmed from a sowing necessity.

With a freshly seeded hemp field to protect, farmers would need to keep away hungry birds ensuring a successful sow. With necessity a tradition is born!

With the birds chased from the fields, it was time to make these seeds grow.

a Cyanotype photograph of a family around a large swing, dating from 1895-1900

Choosing a spot high on a hill, construction would begin on a giant structure, a swing. The swings were constructed with one purpose in mind, to make the hemp grow…

Legend has it, the higher you swing, the higher your hemp will grow…

With the fate of their hemp on the line, farmers would vie for the largest swings on the highest hills in hopes to be the farmer with the highest hemp in the land.

During the four day celebration, this swing would be the center of the festival, a place to sing, dance and of course swing!

Swinging on Lieldienas (Easter) at festival in Latvia

With the party in full ‘swing’ special folk songs called ‘sūpuoklinė’, which imitate the actual swinging in its layering, are sung by the dancing onlookers while villagers swing for the sky.

Many of these songs still hint at their ancient roots…

‘Jurgelaici’

Jurgi Jurgi, Jurgelaici

Jurgi Jurgi, Jurgelait

To whom do you curl up?

To whom do you cross the curtain?

I’m curled with a curl

I’ll give you a seat

I will give myself a chair

I will plant a girlfriend

– liaudies sūpuoklinė daina (Lithuanian swinging Easter folk song)

Swing at a Easter Festival Lithuania

The Easter swing sets dotted the hilltops for only 1 week. On the 7th day they were ceremoniously set on fire and burned to the ground. Legend has it the swings are burned to stop a passing witch from swinging on the swing set putting a bad curse on the coming crop.

In pagan times the ashes from the swing bonfire were added as soil amendments in the hemp fields to bring further luck upon the plants.