The Easter Bunny is alive and well in Franconia. It is known as die Osterhäse (the Easter hare) or das Osterhäsla (the little Easter hare). That second word is a peculiar Franconian word not standard German, but that’s another story. He brings eggs, lots of eggs. Eggs are painted and hung from trees around here in preparation. They also have the town fountain or spring known as die Brunnen which at this time of year are decorated with evergreen bows an in gigantic and complex wreathes and adorned with eggs (sometimes plastic ones but sometimes with hundreds of real eggs, blown and painted by school children) and are then known as die Osterbrunnen, I will include pictures here. The stores sell the usual fair but here there are Konditorei which sell schokoladehäse (chocolate hares) weighing over 700 grams (nearly 2 pounds) and standing about 2 feet tall! (and costing €40).
The connection between springs, bringing life giving water, and eggs and rabbits/hares both being symbols of fertility, being celebrated in the springtime is obvious. It even seems reasonable, at least over a few beers, within the context of an ancient myth that the hares would conflate with the eggs and would be delivering them. When this gets mixed with Christian symbology too though, it gets a bit too confusing. Some of the wreath like structures on the Osterbrunnen are designed like crowns or crosses and on Palmsamstag (yes, that would be Palm Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday) the Osterbrunnen in Trabelsdorf had branches of fir on the ground in a path. I saw no palm leaves anywhere.
I went to Schlenkerla on Thursday evening, as I do nearly every Thursday evening, and sat with a group of German friends. I tried to describe the branches on the ground, which were either Fichte (Spruce) or Tannen (Fir), most likely the former as the latter is rare in this area. Unfortunately I pronounced the former “fikte” when it should have been nearer to but not quite “fishte”, they were quite confused how there could be pieces of this all over the ground in a path as the word as I pronounced it sounded to them much more like the verb ficke, which means “to have sex” – but not quite so genteel. Of course, that has more to do with springs, eggs, rabbits, and other fertility symbols than it does with palm branches on a road in Jerusalem, but who knows, maybe this too really hearkens back to an ancient religion. 😉
Yesterday the restaurants, what were open, served no meat, though you certainly could still get beer. The church bells did not sound but at somewhere around 0530 yesterday and today some little girls walked around making noise on some very loud wooden things known as die Ratsche (ratchets) and chanting something. Whoever thought up this idea was not very bright and ought to be flogged. To have children running around in the streets making very loud noises, even having machines to make them, before 6 in the morning on a Saturday is insane.