Old Customs in January

A ploughed field in January, photo: gb

January 1., New Year's Day :
It's a Helligdag (holiday) in Denmark and the other Nordic countries and an official flag day. New Year's Day was earlier called the Eighth Day of Christmas, but it was not always considered the first day of the year. Before Christianity came to Denmark it was probably Winter Solstice on 21/22 December which was considered the first day of the year. When Christianity gradually was accepted  the 25th december, the birth of Christ was the first day of the year for centuries. Not until the reform of the calendar in 1700 it seems that the first day of the New Year was commonly considered to be January 1. And still is!

Old Customs:
When the people in the farm woke up on New Year's morning they must not do anything at all before they had eaten something. After this the farmer went outside shooting the new year welcome like he had done the night before - if he had a gun! Then the household had a good and very solid breakfast. Later they all went to church, where they 'sacrificed' (mostly money) to the vicar and the parish clerk. The rest of the day people had a pleasant time with quiet pursuits.

New Year was always one of the big feasts and mærkedage (red-letter days) of the year. As early as around year 1000 (Canute the Great) it was decided that the eighth Day of Christmas had to be fixed  skiftedag' ( a notice day and a day on which servants used to change jobs). But most important were probably the omens from where the farmer read signs about the harvest of the year to come. The harvest was the most important thing of all. In the old society it was crucial, that there was food enough for the household, or else they had to starve in the next winter.

In the ancient societies they lived "from hand to mouth". Most omens had to do with the weather and the harvest situation. Up till the middle of the 1800s more than 90 % of the Danish population was living in the country and was completely dependent on the yields and the significance of the climate.

Superstition and omens for New Year's Day:
Like the weather is on this day, so it will be on Midsummer's Day.
On New Year's morning the farmer looked at the sky, for if the sky was red before sunrise the coming year would be marked with war, plague and bad weather in general.
Another omen said that if the sun on New Year's Day is shining as long as it takes to saddle a horse, then it will be a fertile year.
If you swept well indoors on New Year's Day, you would bring good weather to the harvest in the New Year.

Easter Customs in 16th Century's Scandinavia.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Netherlandish proverbs.

 
A Time of Change. 
Easter was not only a Christian celebration in the 16th century. Many customs were influenced by the early Middle Ages and before that, both by ancient Norse mythology and ancient pagant belief. It was not easy for the Catholic church fathers to handle or "rule" the Scandinavian people during Easter, considering all those various opinions and old customs. In some desolate districts of Norway the customs were still of an ancient origin and still very much alive, and in all of Scandinavia people still believed in witches and witchcraft. But when the reformation arrived in the middle of the century everything changed. This was the end of the Middle Ages. A time of change.

The Quiet Week. 

Ghirlandio: St. Jerome

Although the fasting-time was abandoned since the reformation, there were still old-fashioned people, who maintained the ancient customs around Lent - even people in the next generations who knew nothing or little about the Catholic period. But although people in general did not take it so seriously, it was very characteristic that nobody held a party, wedding or alike between Shrovetide and Easter. The last week before Easter was called "the quiet week",  and on Palm Sunday were some religious customs with inauguration of palm leaves or of flowering willow twigs. It was not easy to get hold of palm leaves in Scandinavia. But these customs disappeared quickly as soon as the Catholic church fathers  said good-bye after the reformation. The quietness and the gravity from before were more obviously seen in tne names of the Easter days: Palm Sunday, Blue Monday, White Tuesday, Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday.


Cabbage and Loke's Sleigh.

Loke

Contradictions met at Maunday Thursday. Folklore fought between light and darkness on this day. The bright sides of the day were first of all the power transferred to the only green plant which had survived winter, the cabbage. Nine cabbages cooked together protected against disease and other evils in the year to come, nine various cabbages or herbs, plucked and gathered in the morning and cooked together. The air had a healing power on that day. If the clothes were hang out in the air they would be freed from the moths, and the bedlinen would be freed from the fleas.  In Telemarken in Norway they had to do a little more work to free the bedlinen from the fleas, they had to plait three strings to help the god Loke's broken sleigh. Every Maundy Thursday Loke came with a load of fleas and since the load was heavy his sleigh broke, and if they did not assist him, they would not get rid of the intruders in their bedlinen the whole next year.


Malicious Witchcraft on Maundy Thursday. 

Medieval drawing.

Maundy Thursday was influenced by some sinister witchcraft. This day was similar to other wellknown witch-days - Valborg's Day and Midsummer's Day - and everyone who did not safeguard himself against the evil was higly exposed to danger. In a socalled "clerical law" from Christian II's time the magistrate ordered to closely watch all, who were suspected of witchcraft. But it was not easy to watch the elusive witches, when they in the dead of night on Maundy Thursday rode on a broomstick to their meeting-place. The safest precaution and protection against the witches was to fasten steel above the doors, put steel into the bed and with the cattle, and to spread axes and iron wedges upon the newly sown fields. Furthermore they had to remove the fourth wheel from the plough, so the witches, who planned to ride the plough, would fail. But it was impossible to keep oneself completely safe from the powerful and malicious witchcraft. A witch, Ingeborg Bogesdatter in Högalöff in Sweden, confessed in 1618  ( most probably under torture) that she had stolen a calf, put a bridle on it and rode above the forests, fields, mountains and waters to Blåkulla, where she took part in the witch-feast. Before her airborne journey she had been so sneaky to blow wind into her nightgown and made a skin in her own looks, whom she laid down beside her husband. Young witches did not need any mount or traffic tool. They had power enough by themselves to rise in the air and fly away.

Ringing the Bells, Finding the Witches.

woodcut 1700th century

The best way to avoid all this witchcraft was to ring the church bells. Still in the 19th century people rang the bells in Smaaland in Sweden each "Dimmelonsdag" ( "Ringing Wednesday") in the evening after sundown and the next morning, on Maundy Thursday, before sunrise. People knew that the witches wanted to whip the church, a very  dangerous witchcraft to the church and to everyone. So they wanted to ring down the Easter witches. There are many stories about this.  A Dean's servants rang the church bells, while three witches flew above the spire. They fell down, but changed skin and transformed into goats. The three goats run up into an old birch, but a man next to them cut one goat in the foot, and since then an old woman in the neighbourhood was limping, and no one doubted that she had been on her flight to the feast of the witches. In another case the downfallen witch transformed into a white sow. Three Easter witches, who had been rung down just before they had to whip the church, were found downside the church, quite naked. People were able to examine the witchcraft in their neighbourhood, if they used an egg, which had been laid by a hen on Maundy Thursday. It was best if this was the very first egg the hen had ever laid.  If they brought the egg with them to church in their pocket, this might be good enough, but the best way to discover the witchcraft was to look through the egg in the sunshine when they came to church. Then they would be able to see among the churchgoers exactly who was a witch and who had been out flying the night before.

Queen Elizabeth I and the Foot-Washing.

Hilliard: Elizabeth I

In England was celebrated a special act in the 1600s, which is still used in some Catholic countries. A number of poor people were gathered at the palace, and queen Elizabeth had to wash their feet. The cleaning was rather thorough, since everyone, before meeting the queen, was being washed by a washer woman, then by the subordinate of the charity-man and at last by the charity-man himself. When the gospel of the foot-washing had been read, the queen washed everyone's feet the fourth time, assisted by a noble lady. The humbleness of the queen increased with the years, this was indicated by the numbers of the poor which corresponded to the queens' age. 39 poor  people had their feet washed in 1572.  After having finished the washing, the queen kissed them, gave each one both money, clothes, food and drink and a towel and let them go at sunset.

Whipping, Weighing and Salt-cookies.  
After the sinister Maundy Thursday the Dark Good Friday came. (Danish: Langfredag). No one was allowed to be happy on that day, and the fasting and the self-torture reached a peak. In some places in Norway everyone had to be whipped with rods in the morning, no one had anything to eat until the evening, and they had to use all their strenght and torture themselves with overwhelming work. The conditions were just as strict in Denmark, the priest at court let his children summon into his study each Langfredag , where he flogged those poor little kids, so they could feel how awful the Saviour had suffered on Good Friday.  A reason for a punishment was, if someone did not pass the fasting-test. In many districts people had to be weighed, and if they had not lost weight after the Lent this indicated clearly that they had not respected the fasting - and they had to be punished. In some districts people knew how to prepare themselves for this test. On the first weighing before the Lent-period  they put sand in their stockings and pebbles in their pockets to get a better result and to avoid punishment on the second weighing. The fasting was also extended to the livestock. On Good Friday the cattle did not get their usual fodder, but only what was found in the forest and in the field, and humans had the humblest meal in the evening time, usually flour-porridge or eggs in a mustard sauce. In some districts they remembered how thirsty Christ were on that Friday, and before bed-time they had to eat three salt-cookies, which of course evoked an unbearable urge to drink water during the night.

Food-Blessing and Mass

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Wheat Harvest.

Next day, Easter Saturday, the preparations for the happy time finally started. In days of the Catholicism the priest blessed the food and sowing seeds of the farmers, and this continued for a period after the reformation. The blessing still took place in 1566. People came with all kinds of food, rye, barly, oats; the priest blessed it and read a special prayer, a mass was held in the evening and the farmers were now sure that their food and corn were secure for the whole following year. But both the food-blessing and the mass were later prohibited by the bishop of Sjælland. (Zealand). People were now forced to be content by celebrating the Easter Saturday inside the walls of their own home with the old feast-dishes, sweet porridge and soft-boiled eggs.

Dancing Sun and Evil Smoke. 

di Paolo: Angels dancing in the Sun.

The Easter Sunday was entirely a happy festive. People were up and about from early morning to watch the sunrise, to see the sun play and dance with joy upon the sky.  Only in a few places some sad superstitions were connected to this Easter morning. In a Norwegian district the farm-people were afraid of lighting the fireplace, they believed that the smoke from the house meant they would be plagued by predators. They were later persuaded to forget their fear, but they were still cautious; instead they used nine kinds of wood and a wooden spoon, the ear of a pot, a broom and gunpowder and sulphur to light the fire. In this powerful way they intended to cleanse the chimney from the infection, which had been there since the night of Maundy Thursday, where the witches flew through the chimney. Even the smoke was infected. Everyone went out to see where the smoke went. If the smoke went towards the church, it was an omen that someone in the house was a coward and was soon to die.

Agnus Dei silver jewelry.

Easter Lamb and Agnus Dei.

Lam with cross, church North Jutland/gb

A Christian custom was the distribution of the socalled Easter lamb. In the beginning of the 16th century when the Catholic church was still the ruler, this distribution took place in the old-fashioned manner, the priest gave or sold after the mass on Saturday Evening the churchgoers some inaugurated Easter lambs made of  wax; they were considered to be some secret means against all evil. But their miraculous power made people wish to own them in a better material than wax and to carry them always. A custom evolved, where rich people wore an Easter lamb in silver or gold in a chain around the neck.  The jewelry in the chain was like a medal or a coin with the image of an Easter lamb. Jewelry like this was given the name Agnus Dei, and it was very popular both in Scandinavia and in Europe in general. But after the reformation the custom with the lambs were  just as unpopular as the other custom-rests from the Catholic period. The wax lambs disappeared together with the mass on Easter Saturday, or they were inaugurated secretly, until the custom went into oblivion. In Denmark most of the Agnus Dei-jewelry was probably lost during the next century. The silver and gold lambs were still worn openly, but the meaning was soon forgotten. The thirty-year war and the wars between Denmark and Sweden swept away all the old gold and silverware, and towards year 1700 there were only few Agnus Dei left. In the 19th century the old Easter lambs entered the market again, not in wax or as a jewelry, but as some kind of playtoy in sugar or cotton with an attached crossbanner.

Easter, Oster and Ostara

When people came home after the church service in the Easter-period,

Two devils with eggs, National Museum by Kornerup.

they spent their time with all kinds of fun. A special Easter pleasure was the  Easter eggs. They were like today, coloured eggs, usually red, blue, yellow, sometimes with inscriptions. They were used as gifts or in various plays.  The most common play was to let them roll down a hill. The players had to touch or crush the shell of the other down-rolling eggs. In Germany and England was also another play, where the eggs were hidden in "hare-nests". The use of Easter eggs is one of  the oldest known and most spread feast-customs. The blessing of food on Easter Saturday, which in Scandinavia was about both eggs, food in general and seeds, was in the southern countries only about eggs. In the Roman and Greek-Catholic church the Easter began with the enjoyment of eating the inaugurated Easter eggs. And Easter eggs were known from Scandinavia to Egypt,  from England to Persia and Siberia. The eggs were since time immemorial a symbol of the introvert and yet vigilant, fertile, emerging life, and it could as well be used as a sign of spring or resurrection. The English "Easter" and the German "Oster" both origin from the old Saxon word oster = to resurrect. But if it is referred to the resurrection only, then this is weakened by that the ancient Germans worshipped a goddess of spring named Ostara. Her name is connected to the East, to the dawn.

GB






Source: Dagligt liv i Norden det 16. århundrede, Årlige fester, Projekt Runeberg, 1914-1915. 

Letters with Love Knots and Riddles

 

Bindebrev from 1600s

A Bindebrev was a letter, used in Denmark between the 1600s and 1800s, which had to bind or tie the receiver. The letter had some verse and a silk cord with a lot of knots attached. The idea was that the receiver had to loosen the knots, and if this was impossible, then the receiver was bound to hold a party, give a kiss or whatever it might be. The point was to bind the knots so tight that it was impossible to loosen them. The letter was binding from the moment when the receiver touched it the first time, and the sender had to sneak it into the hands of the receiver.
  

 a letter like a love knot

The binding letter was connected to a person's name day (they did not celebrate their birthday, but only name day in the 1600s) or it could be used at one of four special days during the year called tamperdays. The binding letters came to Denmark from Germany and were known and used since the 1600s.  It was difficult to make contact between the sexes at that time, and the binding letters were originally love letters. The knots on the silk cord were called love knots.  The letters were often very artful and decorated with colours, flowers and verse. A  bindingletter is known from Christian IV to his mistress Karen Andersdatter.

how to begin

a very fine gækkebrev

They were replaced by the gækkebreve. A gækkebrev is a specific Danish tradition from Easter. It is a letter cut in paper in a fine symmetrical pattern. The name gækkebrev is connected to the flower vintergæk (English snowdrop), and besides containing a riddle, a verse or a poem the letter often has a fine pressed flower of the pretty vintergæk. A gækkebrev is sent anonymously with dots instead of letters . "Mit navn det står med prikker. "(My name is with dots) - and often a little Easter poem is added. The poem might be a few sentences or nonsense verse or a more poetic verse.


Gækkebreve are mostly used by children today. When those Easter letters replaced the binding letters they were still used by adults, and the love knots were cut like complicated paper clip, where the pattern fx formed several hearts. The receiver had three guesses to find the name of the sender and if he or she  hadn't guessed it after three attempts, they had to give the sender an Easter egg. 

The word gække : 
To gække means to trick or to fool , which also lies in the word vintergæk, the flower which tricks summer and is in full bloom in winter. To gække each other is to trick each other in a playful way.

If you could not guess the name of the sender, you were a gæk (fool) - and if you had forgotten to attach a vintergæk, then you were also a gæk. But there were many variations. 
GB

Happy New Year!
Various Customs Around New Year

The New Year is celebrated worldwide with great fun and fervor, it's a perfect time to think of the year ahead and forget the past and at the same time remember to enjoy the celebrations with family and friends. New year is a time for new hopes, festivities and indulgences. The exact date of New Year was not known until the Romans gave the date for the New Year celebrations to be January 1st. It depends on the time zone of the country for the exact time of the New Years Eve.

The regional traditions and customs like taking part in the New Year parade, dancing, singing, enjoying fire works and indulging in parties are all a part of the New Year celebrations worldwide. Gifts are exchanged and people wear gorgeous clothes to make the New Year celebration worldwide more complete. New year is the time to visit families and friends and enjoy eating delicious mouthwatering recipes. Making New Years resolutions on New Year is a custom that is observed worldwide. This custom dates back to the early Babylonians.


Various New Year Customs
Medieval Feast of Fools
In Medieval Britain, January 1. was the Feast of Fools, also celebrated in Paris from about 1198-1438, a day of licensed jesting – a kind of religious April Fool's Day. It was a crazy day on which low clerical officials could swap places with the higher ones, a mock pope was elected and churchmen parodied religious rituals - for just one day. It harkens back to the feast of Saturnalia in ancient Rome, for several days from December 17. when a Lord of Misrule was appointed to rule temporarily for Saturn. It was also known in Latin by various names, including festum fatuorum, festum stultorum and festum hypodiaconorum and was like various other celebrations, such as the Feast of Asses, and the Feast of the Boy Bishop.

Although the festivities often became anti-ecclesiastical, anti-clerical and even blasphemous, for centuries, the Church allowed the people to revel on this day. In 1440, theologians in Paris argued, in defence of the Feast of Fools, that even a wine vat would burst if the bung-hole were not opened occasionally to let out the air. However, there were often objections raised: In Paris in 1199, Bishop Eudes de Sully imposed regulations to ensure that the abuses committed in the celebration of the January 1 Feast of Fools at Notre-Dame didn’t happen again, and perhaps they didn’t for a time. The Bishop of Lincoln, England, was another who condemned the feast mercilessly. The celebration of the Feast of Fools was eventually outlawed in 1555.

Britain
When Scots and northern English people welcome a first-footer (the first person into their home after the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day), they hope it is a fair-haired man for luck. He must enter by the front door and leave by the back, symbolising the old and new years.
The people of Yorkshire and northern England have among their many old customs the tradition of guising on New Year’s Eve. Guising is a centuries-old practice of going from door to door singing songs - trick or treating at Halloween derives from guising. The Welsh open the back door before midnight on New Year’s Eve to let the Old Year out, then they lock it. At the last stroke of midnight on the clock they open the front door to welcome the New Year.
Ancient Britain gives us many well and sacred spring customs. The first water drawn from a well on January 1 is supposed to bring fortune and happiness, and is called the Cream of the Well. It is customary to leave petals floating on the water. The wells at Wark, in Northumberland, UK, are supposed to have magical powers on New Year’s Day. In Wales, drawing fresh spring water as a New Year’s Day custom might have survived at the town of Tenby as late as the 1950s.

Continental
Polish tradition is for vagabond players to put on street pantomimes on New Year’s Day. Gypsies, too, are on the streets, fortune telling. A century ago the Sicilians on New Year’s Day ate lascagne cacate, or “crappy noodles”, a kind of lasagne. To eat any other sort of pasta today was considered bad luck. Their saying went “Whoever eats macaroni today will have a bad year”. People of Madrid, Spain, have an interesting old New Year’s custom: at the stroke of midnight each person eats twelve grapes. The cinemas will even stop running a movie at midnight to allow the patrons to eat their grapes.

Asia
As in many parts of the world, in Japan the New Year is brought in with noise. Here, temple bells sound, ringing out the old year. Then the joyano-kane, or nightwatch bell, rings in the new with precisely 108 chimes. This, according to Buddhist tradition, helps free mankind from the 108 “earthly desires”. A good idea has swift feet - the chiming of bells rings in the New Year in Japan and England as well as in Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia and Romania. As in many parts of the world, in Thailand the New Year is brought in with the tolling of bells – temple bells. People say "Kwam Suk Pee Mai!", meaning Happy New Year! Today Thai children will exchange presents with family and friends, and the general populace will present Buddhist monks a thanks offering of rice and other food.

Russia
The Russians don’t have Santa Claus, even though Saint Nicholas is patron of Moscow. They have Grandfather Frost (D’yed Moroz) at New Year, with his comely and daintily named assistant, Snegourka the Snow Maiden. They bring presents to children on this day. The people of the former Yugoslavia have their Deda Mraz. Like Santa, he brings presents to the children. He arrives a week before Christmas and asks what gifts they would like, delivering them on January 1. The Russian have New Year trees instead of Christmas trees, with more than 50,000 decorated trees erected in Moscow public places and 700,000 in private homes of Moscovites.

photo: gb

Soon Christmas Again!


The first Christmas sight is already in the first days of November, when you see the trees packed and ready....


...............for being transported - here on a small truck -to the market places where they sell lots of firs in November and December.
Now its time for creating a cosy Christmas home and time for baking Christmas cakes. The house has to be decorated with Christmas tree and candles and decorations and pixies and hearts and stars etc................. but from where origins Christmas - and who is Father Christmas?

Christmas was originally a midwinter-feast which was transferred to the Christian church and changed into a feast for the birth of Jesus Christ. The Old Norse Jul was celebrated in January and the southern feast for sol invictus (the invincible sun god) was on the 25. December; therefore the Christmas of Christianity was placed at the same time. According to German and Nordic customs the feast was the night before. Actually it was a vigilie (night of wake) from the Catholic period, where people together waited for midnight and the celebration of mess, which was held at the moment of the Nativity.
The earliest known evidence about Jule-feast in the north is from ab. 900. Here is mentioned the Norse king Harald Fairhair and his son Hakon the Good (the first Christian king i Norway) in connection to Christmas. Harald Fairhair was known as a king, who swore not to cut his hair and beard, until he was king of the whole country. Hakon the Good was known as the king, who ordered the Norwegians to celebrate Christmas "at the same time as Christian men", which indicates that the Jul before Christianity arrived was placed at another and earlier time. The character of the Old Norse Jule-feast appears from the expression "to drink jul". Through centuries the clerical understanding of Jul or Christmas fought against the secular or popular understanding. The development of Christmas was marked by modern ideas through the times and many old customs have become a part of Christmas.

Father Christmas or Santa Claus... who brings Christmas gifts to the children. Father Christmas origins from aCatholic idea that the patron saint of children Sankt Nicolaus( Santa Claus) upon his Saint's day 6. December brings gifts to well-behaved children, while the naughty children are being spanked by his companion (German: Knecht Ruprecht, French: Pére Fouettard). The custom and the date origins from the 1200s. But it was not Sankt Nicolaus, who gave the idea for his red-white dress. In frescoes Sankt Nicolaus is never seen in red and white. His red dress, his reindeer-sleigh, the winter-background and his house at the North Pole are modern additions from the environment of the middle-class´Christmas books and similar things for children. In the first American pictures from the representation Santa Claus wore a fur coat; later he got his present dress, but it is first in the 20th century his dress turned red and white.
Advent
...is the time from and with the 4th Sunday before Christmas until 24 December . From the 5th century celebrated as a preparation for Christmas. On the first Sunday of Advent the first of four candles is lit in the Adventskrans (garland), often a garland made of spruce and hung with red silken bands.

1. december
The Christmas calendar is popular with children. The first of 24 lids is being opened . The Christmas calendar has developed into a gift-calendar - sometimes in large proportions! The calendar candle is lit for the first time.

In December:
Many hangs a Christmas Star in the window. In gardens and on balconies are outdoors Christmas trees with lights the whole Christmas month and longer. Christmas decorations are made, i.e. a large candle encircled by spruce twigs , glass globes and other small Christmas things. And now it is the time for baking, especially the little cakes , i.e. vanila-cakes, brown cakes, small pepper biscuits, crullers etc. And it's time for the julegløgg. (mulled wine with raisina and almonds and various spices)

13. december. Lucia-Day
Lucia-procession where a so-called Lucia-brud (bride) in a long, white dress and with a garland of lit candles upon her hair, followed by white-dressed girls with a candle in their hand. This is a tradition which really brings joy to schools, kindergartens, old people's homes and at hospitals.

23. december. Lillejuleaften (Little Christmas Evening)
The Christmas tree is being decorated. - Many eat apple-cakes and drink gløgg.

24. december. Juleaften (Christmas Evening)
Many goes to church in the daytime. In the evening Christmas dinner, i.e. goose, duck or turkey - or roast pork or neck of pork. Dessert: mostly ris-á lá mande with cherry sauce and with an almond (he/she who gets the almond gets a gift).Dancing and singing around the Christmas tree. The only light in the house at that point are all the lit candles upon the tree and in the decorations. Handing out the gifts. The children are told that Father Christmas brought them!

25. december. Juledag (1. Christmas Day)
Holy Day. Family get-together. Det store kolde bord med små lune retter. (Cold dishes and small warm dishes) Drink: often the strong special Christmas beer. The start of the lunch is various herring with snaps.

26. december. Anden juledag (2. Christmas Day).
Holy Day. Family get-together. Again cold and warm dishes, but now at someone else's house!

Source: Jul i Dannevang 2009, Juleretter 1977, Mad og Bolig Dec. 1996.

Fastelavn /Shrove-Tide - Masks

February 3rd


Viking-mask (The Århus-mask)

Fastelavn/Shrove Tide was originally a pagan spring-and fertility feast. Later it was added to the church tradition, but during the Reformation in 1536 the clergy made an attempt to abolish it - in vain. They considered it to be too violent and too heathen. The Fastelavn-custom arrived in Denmark in the end of the 1300s with German merchants and workmen. The name Fastelavn comes from the German Faste-Abend, meaning a night for fasting - the night before the beginning of the Lent which is seven weeks before Easter.

After the Middle Ages the Fastelavn-celebrations were less heathen. In the country the guys on the farms gathered in a group on horseback. They were dressed in their finest clothes and the girls had decorated their favorite guy with silk ribbons on their shirts and hats. Everyone was dressed as either a beggar, a bitch or a clown. The clown wore a white shirt with tassels and a half-mask and a special hat. The beggar was dressed as an old man, and the bitch was a man dressed in a woman's clothes. The guys rode from farm to farm with musicians in front, and when they came to a farm they danced with the girls to the music. They were treated with beer and snaps, and the farm-wife gave them a basket with eggs for their special egg-drinks in the evening.


Viking-mask from Sweden

During the 1900s Fastelavn was mostly for children who went from house to house with a collecting-box, singing a song and begging for buns and money.The children were dressed in imaginative clothes, and their faces were painted or they wore face-masks. This was a tradition on Fastelavns- Monday, and it's still popular to dress up in fantastic dresses. The tradition with the collection-box has almost disappeared.

A Danish Fastelavns-Song: (the children sing if the don't get any buns then they'll make some trouble. )

Fastelavn er mit navn
boller vil jeg have,
hvis jeg ingen boller får
så laver jeg ballade

Boller op, boller ned,
boller i min mave,
hvis jeg ingen boller får
så laver jeg ballade.


Viking-mask from Skern, West Jutland

Another tradition with origin in ancient traditions was to 'beat the cat out of the barrel'. In the Middle Ages a black cat was considered an evil creature. A living cat was put into a barrel, and then the barrel was beaten into pieces, which meant that they were chasing the winter away. Today the custom is still in use, but the barrel is filled with fruit and candy and sometimes a paper figure of a black cat. Children in gaily coloured Fastelavns-costumes line up in a row and beat the barrel. When the barrel finally falls down the last one who gave it a beat is the cat-king or the cat-queen and gets a golden paper crown on his/her head.

Another custom came to Denmark in the 1700s where a birch-twig was used to 'whip' the women. It was some kind of fertility-rite. The women then thanked the men by giving them buns and cakes. In the 1900s the Fastelavns-twig was decorated twith multicoloured tissue paper strings and used by children to 'beat up' their parents, who then gave a breakfast with delicious Fastelavns-buns. Today the Fastelavns-twig is only used as a gift or as an extra decoration at home , decorated with candy and funny toy things.

The custom about the Fastelavns-buns will probably never disappear. Those buns are extremely popular, and the bakers already start selling them after Christmas. Buns with creme, jam, marzipan or whipped cream - and with pink, white or chocolate icing - or icing sugar on top. Very delicious.

Pictures of viking masks from the archaeological magazine 'Skalk', Højbjerg, Århus