img2.gif
Easter Water
  In earlier times there was a custom to put away Easter Water (for use)
against skin and eye ailments. One had to scoop the water from a pure,
flowing brook in the earliest Easter Sunday hours before sunrise and
one may meet no one and speak to no one. Whoever washed himself on
Easter Day with such water remained protected from skin and eye
ailments.

One saw young girls wending their way to the nearest clear stream in
the gray early moring hours to gather the water which was susposed to
bestow beauty and virtue. The way there and home again had to be paced
silently. That wasn't easy, for young boys and envious women attempted
to hinder them with that, to startle them and to tempt them into idle
conversation. If they were successful, the Easter Water would turn to
desecrated "Schladder-water" and the maidens would become the scorn of
all.

The earlier one made the pilgrimage to the spring, the fewer tempters
one would meet. This Easter event had another purpose that the
children and adults pursued. In the rising sun, just when the sun's
red ball appeared and spread itself to its full might, one saw the
Easter lamm jump. A beautiful custom, that, with the power of belief,
the jumping of the Easter lamm actually let itself be seen in the sun's
ball during the awakening of spring and in the early mist of the
steaming earth.

[Translated by Joel Streich, New York, 1999,
from the book "Der Kreis Wirsitz"]