Egg-Stra Special Tradition

Romanian Eggs Keep Family History Alive

Last updated Saturday, March 22, 2008 6:34 PM CDT in Living

By Marla Hinkle
THE MORNING NEWS

"You have to be pretty careful with these eggs to have them this long," the Rogers resident said during a recent interview.

The eggs have not faded.

"I think they are special."

The white eggs were boiled and decorated with Diamond dye. Her mother used three-pound coffee cans for the coloring process.

She added vinegar to the dye and crepe paper. The eggs were covered with wax and colors. For example, she would start with yellow and work up to the darkest color.

A stylus was used to make the intricate designs. The stylus funnel contained the wax and was held over a candle. When it started melting, Mack's mother started writing.

"I remember not moving fast enough and creating big blots of wax."

Mack has taught her three children and five grandchildren the egg artistry she learned from her mother.

"You have to have a steady hand and brain," Mack said. The process took her three hours, and her mother one hour.

"If my mother promised anyone an egg, she would work into the night to complete it."

A personal favorite of Mack's is an amber, yellow and brown egg that has deepened colors that remind her of ancient Egyptian colors.

Margaret Redfield, a friend, said she liked an egg with vivid red and golden colors. Wheat on the egg symbolizes the staff of life.

"The eggs are so beautiful with detail and colors," Redfield said.

Each pattern on the eggs was drawn by hand.

Mack also brought a basket her mother had in the 1920s. She would place a braided piece of bread in the basket and cover it with a white sheet she fashioned with an embroidered cross.

The cross symbol is incorporated into each egg design.

"People familiar with the Bible will see a lot of the symbolism," Mack said.

Some of the patterns and signs on painted eggs have symbolism from pre-historic times.

• Wavy patterns - rain

• Dots - grain that is about to sprout

• Squares and rhombi - earth and its fertility

• Greek cross - the sun and originally a god of the Earth

• Zigzag with rounded angles - the snake that was a symbolical representation of a god of the Nether World

• Tree - the sacred Tree of Life

• Female figure - the Great Goddess

• Goddess of the Sky - Protector of all Life on Earth

• Fish - health, fertility, life and death

• Birds - creatures that are able to fly high and thus carry messages to the gods

• Oak leaves - the god of Thunder, of human and solar energy, of life

Some collectors keep their eggs in a glass globe, china cabinet or egg stand.

Her eggs are stored in a woven basket. For Easter, Mack said she would place her treasured eggs on the dining room table.

AT A GLANCE

One of the most beautiful Romanian Easter traditions is painted eggs. The shells of hard-boiled eggs are dyed in colorful patterns, with a rich red the prevailing color. They are often decorated with folk motifs.

Designs are made with an implement called a condei or chisita - a small cartridge filled with paint with a sharp point on the end.

There are myriad motifs used on painted eggs. The most popular ones are the cross, the star, the sun, the wave, the zigzags and stylized flowers.

Sometimes motifs are applied using natural leaves. Traditionally, it's the women who paint Easter eggs, and they have to do it on the Thursday before Easter. Women are not supposed to do any work on the Friday.

Easter morning the painted eggs are tapped together with the words spoken "Hristos a Inviat - Adevarat a Inviat" - "Christ is Risen - He is Risen indeed." This ritual precedes the Easter breakfast.

Easter painted eggs with bright colors in geometrical patterns or stylized figures, animal and floral designs are traditional for Eastern Europe, from Romania, Moldova and Ukraine to Lithuania.

It started long time ago as a pagan ritual. Christianity adopted the tradition, and Easter eggs have become an indelible feature of the feast commemorating the Resurrection of Christ.

In many parts of the world one finds ancient myths in which the Egg is featured as a symbol of the Sun, Spring and Revival of Nature. Ethnologists of the 20th century have discovered that the ancient beliefs of many peoples regarded the Egg of Light as a source from which the world had sprung, developing from Chaos to Order.

In Eastern Europe the tradition of painting eggs goes back thousand of years. Clay eggs, once evidently painted and dating from the 13th or 12th century B.C., were unearthed by archaeologists from river Nistru (Dniester) to Moldavia and Vilnius, Lithuania.

Painted eggs must have been used as charms guarding against evil. For it to have magic powers, a painted egg must be painted at a specified time, in certain colors and patterns, and chants must be sung while it was being painted.

It was also very important to give it as a present to the right person. Painted eggs were mostly painted by elderly women, late at night, after everything had grown quiet.

It was desirable to do it at the end of the day which had passed without any rows, scandals or emotional upheavals.

The eggs had to be either a fertilized one, taken from under a hen, or if the fertilization could not be ascertained the egg to be painted had to be sucked out.

To do it one has to make two tiny holes with a needle at the opposite ends and then drain the eggs of its contents. The symbolism of colors, patterns and designs varied from area to area but were certain patterns and designs that were of a more universal character.

If the colors, patterns, chanting and other things were right, if the eggs had been properly chosen and treated before being painted, if the time of the day when the painting was done was correct, then the painted eggs were believed to be powerful charms against fire, lightning, illnesses and other mishaps.

Christianity imbued the painted egg with new meanings transforming it into the Easter egg and giving it a new symbolism but it could not eradicate the elements of pagan beliefs associated with the painted egg.

Easter eggs, blessed in church by a priest, were continued to be used as a sort of charms for many different occasions: to be placed under the corner stone of a house; to help bees make more honey; to guard against misadventure on a journey; to secure happiness in marriage; to promote multiplication in the animal, floral and human worlds, to a name but a few of its functions.

Source: radur.homechoice.co.uk/ROtraditions.html

EASTER EGG HISTORY

Intricate Easter egg designs date back centuries.

The decoration of Easter eggs to further enhance their value became an art form centuries ago and continues today. Dyes made from vegetables, edible flowers, fruits, coffee, tea, leaves, bark and roots were used to tint the eggs.

Lovely designs were created by wrapping the eggs in ferns before tinting. The art progressed, with western Europeans becoming expert at creating intricate patterns in vibrant colors on the small eggs.

Always be certain you use food-safe dyes when coloring eggs that will be eaten. Here are explanations of some of the many types of decorated eggs:

• Etched: Traced back to Macedonia, this process involves dyeing the egg, applying a layer of wax in a design, then bleaching off the color leaving only the wax-covered areas with color.

• Krashanky: The Ukrainian word means color, and these eggs are dyed a solid, brilliant color, often red to symbolize the blood shed by Christ on the cross.

• Pysanky: The term comes from the word pysaty, meaning to write, and this describes how the egg is decorated.

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• Faberge: Probably some of the most famous and most expensive Easter eggs known are those created by Russian jeweler Peter Carl Faberge in the 1800s.

The eggs were made of gold, silver and jewels and most opened up to reveal exquisite tiny figures of people, animals, plants or buildings. A total of 57 eggs were made.

• Binsegraas: The Pennsylvania Dutch traditionally wrapped the pith of the binsegraas, a type of rush, in coils which were glued to eggs. Then interestingly shaped scraps of calico cloth were pasted on the egg.

The Polish use colorful rug yarn formed into elaborately designed coils, although they, too, originally used rushes.

• Jeweled: Designs are created by gluing any manner of sequins, beads, flowers, etc., onto blown eggs.

• Cut-Out or Carved: Blown eggs are used also for these creations where a portion of the shell is cut away. The exterior is decorated, and the inside filled with a little scene to be viewed through the cut-out section. These can be exquisitely elaborate.

• Calico or Madras: Eggs were wrapped in calico or madras cloth and then boiled. The water released the dyes from the cloth and transferred to the egg. Since most modern cloth is colorfast, these are rarely made nowadays. This type of egg is not to be eaten, due to the danger of the dyes.

Source: http://homecooking.about.com

AT A GLANCE

How to Color and Blow Eggs

Wash the egg and prick top and bottom with a thick needle or hatpin. Peel away a little shell at the base. Holding the egg over a bowl, seal your lips over the top and blow hard. The egg will resist then come out in a rush. Rinse the shell carefully in cold water and prop up to dry.

Alternatively, eggs can be hard-boiled after they have been washed (and the shell degreased).

• Use only food-grade dyes, such as red food dye or other colors.

• Dissolve the dye in warm water, add a pinch of salt and few drops of vinegar, then bring to boil.

• Dip the hard-boiled eggs and leave to color on all sides; after dyeing, leave the egg to dry on a plate with bloating paper.

• You could use onion skins to create a really glamorous Easter egg. Boil eggs (in shells) with onion skins and they'll turn a rich, glowing bronze. Then paint patterns on them using gold, silver or bronze pens.

• Alternatively, melt some candle stubs in a saucepan over a low heat. Dilute a few drops of different food dyes in glasses of water. Dip egg first in dye then into the melted wax just to cover the dye mark. The wax seals the dye so you can dip the egg in several colors without them running into one another

• You could also try patterning the egg with little stick-on circles and stars. Then paint with poster or spray paints. Peel off the labels to reveal the shapes in contrast underneath.

For a two-color effect, paint the whole egg first in a light color, stick on the labels, repaint in a darker shade and remove labels (the shapes will retain the original pale color).

Source: radur.homechoice.co.uk

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