Easter1

The build-up to Easter begins on Shrove Tuesday². This is the day before Ash Wednesday³ – the beginning of the 40 days of Lent⁴. On Shrove Tuesday it is the custom to cook and eat pancakes. This is symbolic of using up left-over food-eggs, milk and flour in this case – in readiness for Lent, traditionally a time of fasting and abstinence⁵. Nowadays very few British people actually fast at Lent, but many use it as a time to try to give up something they know is bad for them, such as chocolate, alcohol or cigarettes.

Although Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar, the majority of the British public pay much more attention to Christmas with its traditions of present giving, eating and drinking. Good Friday⁶ (three days before Easter Day) and Easter Monday are bank holidays, and the banks and other financial institutions, offices and shops are closed on those days.

Gift giving is more restricted than at Christmas although most children are given an Easter egg – made of chocolate and often filled with sweets or a small gift. Tradition says that these eggs are delivered by the Easter Bunny (rabbit) and it is a

popular game for the children to hunt for small eggs concealed around the house or garden.

Fish is traditionally eaten on Good Friday and Easter cake is an iced fruit cake with a marzipan ring on the top.

May Day

May Day is not celebrated in Britain to the same extent that it is in many other countries. It became a public holiday only in relatively recent years and falls on the first Monday of May (and not on 1 May).

In previous centuries, May Day, which marked the Spring festival, was a potent pagan symbol and was widely celebrated. Today, in many towns and villages you can still find remnants of the old traditions. Often a local girl is chosen and crowned “Queen of the May”, and people dance round a May Pole – a tall pole with colored ribbons attached to the top – on the village green. However May Day is chiefly celebrated as simply a day off by the majority of the working population.

At the end of the month there is another public holiday called Whitsun which was originally a holiday to celebrate the religious festival of Pentecost.

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2. As read the chapter, find out the answers to these questions:

   1. What do druids, travellers and hippies have in common?

   2. What happens to people who don’t give children a ”treat” on 31 October?

   3. What is a “guy”?

   4. What is another name for Father Christmas?

   5. What is sometimes the surprise in the Christmas pudding?

   6. When and where might you be given a lump of coal?

Midsummer’s Eve

Although Midsummer’s Eve is not traditionally a widely celebrated festival in Britain, it is celebrated by druids (practioners of an ancient religion now virtually extinct) at the prehistoric stone circle of Stonehenge. In recent years, groups of travellers – caravan dwellers – and hippies have also tried to claim the right to enter the circle to see the sun rise on Midsummer’s Day, but they have generally not been allowed, largely because of fears of damage to the ancient monument.