Easter facts and trivia….

Easter facts and trivia….

D i d Y o u K n o w T h a t . . . . ?

Compiled by Robert Strybel, Polish/Polonian Affairs Writer

— Polish people refer to Lent as “Wielki Post” (the Great Fast).

— Lent begins on Popielec or Środa Popielcowa (Ash Wednesday) when the faithful have their heads sprinkled with ashes as a sign of the transitory nature of life on earth: “From dust thou art and to dust you shall return!”

— The ashes sprinkled on the heads of the faithful on Ash Wednesday come from the burning of the previous year’s blessed palms-In America, the priest traces a cross on the faithful’s forehead with a finger dipped in the ashes.ash.

— Although known in Polish as “palmy” or “palemki” (palms), what Poles have blessed in church on Palm Sunday are pussywillows interspersed with boxwood or other evergreen sprigs or rod-type wildflower bouquets.

— The Kurpie region of NE Poland is known for the country’s tallest Palm Sunday “palms.” These can be trees up to 45 feet tall, stripped of their branches and decorated with evergreen roping, paper flowers and ribbons.

— The Polish term for Easter is “Wielkanoc” (the Great Night) or, less commonly, “Wielka Niedziela” (Great Sunday).

— In Polish all the days of Holy Week (“Wielki Tydzień”) are preceded by the word “Wielki” (great), including Good Friday which is “Wielki Piątek” (literally: Great Friday).

— “Święcone” (literally: that which has been blessed or hallowfare) is the collective name given to the foods blessed on Holy Saturday as well as the meal consumed after Mass on Easter Sunday.

— “Mazurek” is the name of both a folk dance of Poland’s northern Mazury region (known in English as the mazurka) and a flat Easter sheet cake served cut into squares.

— Horseradish (chrzan), a typical Easter condiment, symbolizes one of the bitter herbs of the biblical Passover.

— In the olden days, visits by masquerading house-to-house pre-Lenten revelers ended abruptly at midnight ushering in Ash Wednesday. But the trick-or-tretaing revelers were back on their rounds on Easter Monday.

— “Ostatki” (the final fling) or “Ostatni Wtorek” is how Shrove Tuesday is referred to in Polish. It marked the last occasion for feasting and merriment before the onset a six-week-long Lent.

— “Tłusty Czwartek” (Fat Thursday) is Poland’s traditional “Pączki Day”, whereas in Polonia it is widely celebrated on Shrove Tuesday.

— Aside from “pączki”, a typical Polish Mardi Gras pastry is are “faworki” (also known as “chrust” or “chruściki” – kindling wood). In America they have gone under various names including angel wings, bowties, bowknots, crisps and crullers.

— In standard Polish a “kraszanka” is a solid-colored Easter egg. But in the southern region of Silesia (Śląsk), a “kroszonka” is not only the local pronunciation but means a dark-colored egg on which a design has been etched with a pin, needle or other sharp, pointed instrument, revealing the lighter-colored egg-shell beneath.

— “Gorzkie Żale” (Bitter Lamentations), a typically Polish Lenten service, reflects on the Passion and Death of Christ through a series of mournful chants. The hymns were published in a prayer book for the first time in Warsaw in 1707. — “Kołatki,” wooden clappers were used in church instead of altar bells on Holy Thursday to set the somber mood for Good Friday. But boys being boys, they would run through the streets with their “kołatki” making a huge racket just for the fun of it.

— Traditional Polish Easter plants include pussy willows (“bazie” or “kotki”), boxwood (“bukszpan”), a small-leafed evergreen used for decorating Easter baskets, cranberry leaves (used for garlands rimming the “święconka” table) and such spring flowers as daffodils, hyacinths, tulips and forsythia.

— Passion plays, known as “Misteria Paschalne” are staged at a number of religious shrines in Poland, but the best known is that held during Holy Week at Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. The most spectacular is a high-tech production performed since the late 1990s in the west-centgral city of Poznań.

— “Palenie tarniny” (the burning of thorny sloeberry branches) is a ritual performed on church grounds on Holy Saturday, when new fire and Holy Water are blessed.

— “Baba”, which can mean grandmother, old lady, hag or beggar woman, is also the name of the best known Easter cake – a tall, tapered, yeast-raised egg bread, usually studded with raisins and glazed with icing. “Babka” is the diminutive and means a smaller cake of this type.

— The “Grób Pański” or “Boży Grób” is a tableau of Our Lord’s Tomb, set up at one of the church’s side-altars for adoration by the faithful on Good Friday and Holy Saturday. An honor guard of soldiers, parish activists or Boy Scouts often takes takes turns standing watch at the scene.

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The “Baranek Wielkanocny” or Easter Lamb is a “must” in the Easter baskets blessed in church on Holy Saturday. The lambs may be made of sugar (rock candy), white chocolate, butter, cake dough, wood, plastic, plaster or plush.

— “Topienie Judasza” or the drowning of Judas was once a favorite of youngsters. A straw effigy of Judas was hurled to the ground from the church steeple, dragged through the streets, beaten with sticks and burned or drowned in the nearest lake or river.

— Although house-to-house revelers did not make their rounds during Lent, an exception were the “pucheroki”. These were boys who donned pointed paper hats and elements of military-like uniforms as they made their rounds in several villages near Kraków on Palm Sunday, the first day of Lent.

— The Kurpie region of NE Poland is known for the country’s tallest Palm Sunday “palms”. These are trees up to 45 feet tall, stripped of their branches and decorated with evergreen roping, paper flowers and ribbons.

— “Pogrzeb żuru i śledzia” (the funeral of the herring and sour soup) was a mock ceremony in which village youngsters dumped a pot of ryemeal soup and a herring bone into a ditch to bid farewell to those once daily dietary mainstays of Lent.

— “Wesołego Alleluja” (literally; Happy Allleluia) is the way Poles say “Happy Easter”. Another way is “Wesołych Świąt Wielkanocnych” (Happy Easter Holidays), often shortened to just “Wesołych Świąt.”

— In Polonia the “Święconka” is a community Easter party usually held during the week after Easter. In Poland the term refers to Easter food baskets and the Easter-food display table, once blessed by priests in better-to-do homes.

— “Rezurekcja” (literally: Resurrection) is the name of an early morning Easter Mass that begins at the crack of dawn with an outdoor Eucharistic procession that encircles the church three times before Easter Mass begins inside.

— “Pisanki” are the most intricate and beautiful Easter eggs, on which designs are applied with molten beeswax before immersing the egg in dye. The process is often repeated to achieve a multi-colored effect.

— The typical Easter basket blessed on Holy Saturday contains a symbolic Easter lamb in some form, hard-cooked eggs, sausage, horseradish, bread, salt & pepper and cake. Some families include farmer cheese, confections, vinegar and wine.

— “Chodzenie z kogutem” (making the rounds with a rooster) was once a favorite form of house-to-house Easter caroling on Easter Monday and later. The rooster symbolized fertility, high yields and robust health.

— In many Polish parishes Palm Sunday began with a life-size or nearly-life-size wooden figure of Jesus astride a donkey being pulled through the village. In some places a seminarian did the honors and rode a real donkey.

— Today’s “smigus-dyngus” tradition, largely confined to the Easter Monday water-splashing custom, arose through the merger of two separate customs – “dyngowanie” (Easter trick or treating) and “śmigus” which involved striking people (usually girls) with willow branches.

— One of the forms of post-Easter caroling was “Chodzenie z gaikiem” (making the rounds with a little grove). Especially in Śląsk and Wielkopolska young girls would go begging for treats house to house carrying an evergreen branch decorated with ribbons and paper flowers.

— “Turki Wielkanocne” (Easter Turks) are folk honor guards in stylized uniforms that watch over the Lord’s Tomb in some parts of Poland. They may be dressed as Turkish warriors or Roman soldiers and often perform a military-like drill as part of their re-enactment.

— The “paschał” is the tall Pashcal candle that burns at the altar during the celebration of Mass from Easter until Pentecost. It is lighted from the blessed flames of a sloeberry fire that burns in parishes on Holy Saturday.

-– The town of Grabów in central Poland is unique in holding a “palant” tournament each year on Easter Tuesday. “Palant” is an Old Polish stickball game which some believe was the forerunner of American baseball.