Holy week and the end of Lent

Lent was viewed with great solemnity in Lithuania. People fasted, prayed much, avoided holding or attending any form of entertainment. No one would have dared to hold a wedding during Lent or dance at a party.

As Lent drew to a close, especially after Palm Sunday, preparations for Easter began at full speed. The last three days before Easter were considered especially important and even called "great." These were Holy Thursday (Didysis Ketvirtadienis), Good Friday (Didysis Penktadienis) and Holy Saturday (Didysis Šeštadienis). Lending anything was avoided on these three days because life would later be unlucky: luck is lent away. On Holy Thursday, it is necessary to wash or bathe in a river, lake or pond: all blemishes, pimples and boils vanish. If that is impossible, one must at least wash the face with cold water outside at dawn: the skin will be free of pimples. Wash your face with snow to avoid sunburn, it will be beautiful and white. On Holy Thursday you must clean and wash not only yourself but the whole house, thereby making it easier to keep the house clean all year. If a person rises early, sweeps the rooms and pours the sweepings over his neighbor's fence, all uncleanliness will pass to the neighbor. Pests (fleas, cockroaches) may be exterminated in a similar fashion: after sweeping the house, pour the dirt on the neighbor's property line and return home without looking back. All pests will disappear from the house.

Bugs and pests can also be eradicated on Good Friday by bringing sand or soil from the cemetery and scattering it where bugs such as crickets and fleas breed. They will immediately vanish.

On Good Friday, people conduct themselves in a serious manner, even children are forbidden to make noise because they will then be restless and loud all year. All forms of house cleaning cease because the dust can get into Jesus' eyes and He is already suffering so much on Good Friday.

Next summer's weather can be predicted on Holy Saturday. If the wind blows from the west, the summer will be rainy; a southern breeze means a warm summer; wind from the east brings a good harvest, while a north wind forecasts a cold, unpleasant summer.

People go to church on Holy Saturday to obtain blest fire and water. It is said that lighting a twig with blest fire and carrying it around the house will cause all the snakes to depart from the vicinity. The water was kept as protection against evil spirits, storms and fire.

Homemakers prepared the food for Easter on Holy Saturday, and later the entire family colored Easter eggs.

Lietuviški margučiai. Kairėje — marginti vaikų, dešinėje — skutinėti.

Lithuanian Easter eggs: left — decorated by the hot wax method; right — pattern scratched with a sharp knife point.

It was a distinction to color beautiful Easter eggs. Everyone did his best to display his or her talent. Young girls, who wished to give Easter eggs as gifts to their beaus, worked especially hard to produce beautiful eggs because this determined whether her talents, skill and ingenuity would be appreciated.

In the past, eggs were colored with homemade plant dyes. For example, onion skins give a pretty medium light brown color; dried corn-flower petals a blue grey; hay particles a green; beets a dark red, and alder bark a very dark brown, almost black tint. In more recent times, eggs were colored with store-bought dyes.

When an egg is decorated by the scratch method, it is first hard boiled, cooled and dunked in the dye (a warm egg may also be immersed in dye). When the desired color is achieved, the egg is removed and its surface carefully scratched with the tip of a sharp knife (a pocket knife works very well for this purpose) until the color layer is removed and lines of white shell appear. These lines form various designs. Care must be taken not to pierce the shell. The patterns of scratched Easter eggs are more detailed, angular, sharper and rather intricate. No prior practice is necessary, the process is the same as drawing on paper with a pencil, only in this case the pencil is the knife tip and the paper is the colored egg. The design may be carefully drawn with a regular pencil or white chalk on the egg and the lines etched with a knife. The pattern is more visible if the egg is dyed a darker color.

When using the wax method you will need a metal container holding pieces of candle (preferably white); the container is placed on a stand over a lighted candle. The wax melts from the candle flame and must be heated to the point of almost smoking. The hotter the wax, the easier it is to draw the design on the egg. Certain tools are also needed to draw the pattern. They are easy to make: take several pencils and insert pins with different-size heads into the erasers. The larger heads are good for bigger patterns, thicker lines, while the smaller ones are used for fine lines and detailed designs.

Hard-boiled eggs must be thoroughly cooled. The dyes must also be cold. The pin head is dipped into the hot wax (keep it a little longer the first time, as the pin has to heat up) and used to draw part of the design on the egg. It is necessary to work rather quickly because the wax on the pinhead cools and hardens very rapidly. It then becomes impossible to transfer it evenly onto the egg surface. With a little practice, this task is easily accomplished. A beginner should make short strokes, dots and simple designs. As the hand becomes accustomed to the work more intricate designs can be made. Working is more convenient if the hot wax container is positioned very near the dyer, making it easier to reach and preventing the wax from cooling as quickly as it is brought to the egg.

After the desired pattern has been applied, the egg is lowered into the dye. The wax-covered areas remain white thus producing a design. It is easy to make an Easter egg of several colors by starting with light dyes and adding darker ones. As an example: a portion of the design is applied to the white egg, it is immersed in yellow dye; after it is removed, more design is added and the egg is placed in green dye. When the egg is removed, we have a two-tone design, white and yellow, while the egg itself is green. If more wax is added to the green shell, it can then be dipped into purple or red dye, thus adding green to the design. With some experimentation, very interesting results can be attained. The wax-method design usually consists of shorter strokes because long strokes cannot be made as the wax cools or runs out on the pinhead.

If the Easter eggs are not intended for consumption but only as decorations or gifts, fabric dyes may be used. They produce very vivid colors and thoroughly cover the shell.

We can also try using the old-fashioned method and color Easter eggs with onion skins. About two handfulls of dry yellow onion skins are placed in an enamel pot, a desired number of eggs added over the onion skins and covered with cold water. The pot is placed over a low flame, brought to a boil and slowly simmered until the eggs are hard boiled (about 10 min.). The eggs should be left in the brown liquid until cool. The light brown eggs may be decorated by the scratch method. They can also come out of the dyeing-pot with an interesting design! Before the white eggs are placed into the pot with the onion skins a few sprigs of rue or even parsley can be placed around the egg shell and fastened with thread so they do not slip off during the boiling. After the eggs are taken out of the pot, the plant sprigs are carefully removed: we have a white (or very light tan) design where they covered the shell!

After completing Easter preparations on Holy Saturday, the people went to church and remained through the night until the Resurrection services. They sang hymns and prayed as they kept vigil. In Lithuania it was a custom to recreate Christ's tomb, sometimes even posting guards dressed in ancient Roman military costumes to keep watch.

HOLY WEEK AND THE END OF LENT