Easter Eggs - Then and Now

Easter without eggs is unthinkable to most everyone. Children love to color them. Adults love to hide them for the children. For days after the holiday hard boiled eggs are found in lunch boxes across the world. Old legends insist that Easter eggs are actually laid and hidden by a fictional hare, the Easter Bunny. In old folk tales this bunny would visit all the good boys and girls who went through the trouble of crafting special nests for him, and upon finding such a nest he would lay some eggs in it.

Of course, Easter eggs are a custom that dates back to the earliest rites associated with spring time, namely fertility rites. After all, more than any other symbol in the history of the human race, eggs have been associated with birth, life, and the metamorphosis from something perceived as inanimate to something quite alive.

Children love to decorate hardboiled eggs. Walk through any store around Easter time, and you will be surprised at the plethora of coloring kits and methods that may be found. Keeping in mind that it is children who will be doing the decorating, manufacturers go to great lengths to ensure the safety of the materials as well as the ease of handling them. In addition to the traditional hen's eggs, these days chocolate eggs, candy eggs, and even plastic eggs that may be filled with all types of treats are quite popular.

Of course, some of the most famous Easter eggs have been decorated by adults and not children. For example, the Slavic people mastered the art of egg decorating that relied on highly intricate symbols, drawings, and colorings. These kinds of eggs are known as pisankas. Instead of using readily available dyes, the artists would rely on natural pigment sources, such as onion peels, flower petals, alder bark, and beet juice. Oftentimes hot wax is used to separate areas which are meant to be colored from areas which are meant to remain white. Sadly, this art form is gradually loosing its followers, and it is only a matter of time until pisankas will be rare to find.

In the meantime, in the United States the traditional eggs are more and more being pushed aside by their plastic cousins, simply for the ease in dispensing candy and also for sanitary reasons. Add to this the fact that more and more toys and trinkets are now being hidden for children, and it is not surprising that eggs are losing the spotlight - after all, if given a choice, which child will choose a hard boiled egg over a new little toy?