CHAT: Palmpaasstokken and fastelavnsris.

> Date:         Sat, 22 Apr 2000 21:29:47 +0200
> From: Irina Rempt <ira@...>
> We have Easter on the 30th, and Palm Sunday tomorrow (obviously). The
> kids have made "palmpaasstokken", probably a Dutch custom. They're
> like portable maypoles decorated with candy and raisins and paper
> streamers, with a rooster made of bread on top, to be blessed in
> church - Catholic kids have processions with them, but we have only
> about five kids the right age (able to walk with a palmpaasstok in
> their hand and under 10) in our parish and the procession is only
> from the back of the church to the front where the blessing is to
> take place. After the service all the goodies are eaten, of course.
Interesting. In Denmark, kids get similarly decorated bunches of thin
birch branches (fastelavnsris) on Saturday before Lent, which they're
supposed to use to beat the grownups out of bed on Sunday morning. It
sounds like some of the same elements went into that. No bread
figures, though.

(I'm guessing that another element is the nuclear family version of an
older custom where servants got to beat up their employer at Carnival
time. Since Palm Sunday isn't celebrated specially in the Danish
Lutheran church, the decorated branch idea was transferred there).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)