The day before Easter Day is in some parts called “Holy Saturday.” On the evening of this day, in the middle parts of Ireland, great preparations are made for the finishing of Lent. Many a fat hen and dainty piece of bacon is put into the pot, by the cotter’s wife, about eight or nine o’clock, and woe be to the person who should taste it before the cock crows. At twelve is heard the clapping of hands, and the joyous laugh, mixed with an Irish phrase which signifies “out with the Lent.” All is merriment for a few hours, when they retire, and rise about four o’clock to see the sun dance in honour of the Resurrection. This ignorant custom is not confined to the humble labourer and his family, but is scrupulously observed by many highly respectable and wealthy families.—Brand, Pop. Antiq. 1849, vol. i. p. 161.
March 22.] EASTER DAY.
March 22.]
EASTER DAY.
Easter, the anniversary of our Lord’s Resurrection from the dead, is one of the three great festivals of the Christian year—the other two being Christmas and Whitsuntide. From the earliest period of Christianity down to the present day, it has always been celebrated by believers with the greatest joy, and accounted the queen of festivals. In primitive times it was usual for Christians to salute each other on the morning of this day by exclaiming, ‘Christ is risen;’ to which the person saluted replied, ‘Christ is risen indeed,’ or else, ‘And hath appeared unto Simon’—a custom still retained in the Greek Church.
The term Easter is derived, as some suppose, from Eostre,[30] the name of a Saxon deity, whose feast was celebrated every year in the spring, about the same time as the Christian festival—the name being retained when the character of the feast was changed, or, as others suppose, from Oster, which signifies rising. If the latter supposition be correct, Easter is in name, as well as reality, the feast of the Resurrection.—Book of Days, vol. i. p. 423; see Med. Ævi Kalend. vol. ii. p. 100.
[30] Eostre is perhaps a corruption of Astarte, the name under which the Assyrians, Babylonians, Phœnicians, and the most ancient nations of the east worshipped the moon, in like manner as they adored the sun, under the name of Baal.
In former times it was customary to make presents of gloves at Easter. In Bishop Hall’s Virgidemarium, 1598, iv. 5, allusion is made to this custom.
“For Easter gloves, or for a Shrovetide hen,
Which bought to give, he takes to sell again.”