Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/436

 364 be so, has for his symbol the angle apex upwards, while his adversary is symbolized with the angle apex downward. The same symbolism we find in the prehistoric epoch of Europe. We have the vases of graves signed with this symbol, proving that the people of those times believed also in immortality of the soul. The north of Europe gives the richest material for our symbolism, and especially for the combination of angles, apex upwards and downward, also for two moons posed together, and for the thunder, clearly the angles, apex down and apex up. We have a very important custom in Ukraine—the day of Palm Sunday—that is named by us the Sunday of Willow. This tree is the first to be green. When the people go out of the church, friends meeting together strike one another with a willow branch and repeat a religious formula.

"Not I, that strike thou, but the willow—in a week went the great day—the red egg is not far." The red egg mentioned here is the Easter egg. They are painted in many colors and ornamented with different symbols. Swastikas and suns symbols prevailing. The same Easter egg we find in Moravia and in France, but painted only in red. Those eggs habitually are given as a mark of distinction to the parents or to the older relatives or distinguished persons in the village.

When giving this present they say, "Christ is resurrected," and the one accepting answers, "In truth He is resurrected." Afterwards they divide and eat the eggs. In more civilized society the host and hostess prepare a plate of sliced eggs, with which they meet each guest at the door, and as they exchange greetings they each eat of the egg. Easter with us is a day for renewing acquaintance and friendship. The Sunday after Easter the widow brings the painted eggs to place on the grave of her husband and bemoans her misfortune. We have also many other sun festivals. In the country of Cracow we see the village boys run with flaming torches along the limits of their fields to protect it from calamity. In Ukraine the girls and boys dance round a great fire, sometimes jumping over the flame. In Servia the boys stay around the burning wheel and repeat a religious formula. On the shore of the river Rhine a wheel is tied round with straw, set on fire and rolled