Hyvää pääsiäistä! - A Happy Easter!

Noita on kai eksynyt matkalla Kyöpelinvuorelle tai muuten vain halusi ihmisten seuraan.

Last year and the year before our miniture club worked hard on photoshoots for a calendar that we wanted to create. It turned out well but of course, we have more images than we were able to use. This one below represents Easter.

What do witches and bonfires have to do with Easter? Before Christianity, it was believed that witches flew to a special mountain for a convention with the devil at Easter time. To protect the humans from evil spirits, bonfires were burned in western Finland. Eastern Finland, however, had a different Easter tradition: willow twig blessing. Today the two pre-Christian traditions have somewhat merged. Young children, often girls, dress up as Easter witches, donning colourful old clothes and painted freckles on their faces. “The little witches" then go from door to door, bringing willow twigs decorated with colourful feathers and crepe paper as blessings with a specific rhyme to drive away evil spirits, in return for treats. A bit like the Halloween tradition of trick-or-treating.

In the image below the witch that has apparently lost her way and landed in the wrong place. Instead of the mountain, she is now at someone's backyard and among the humans staring at the bonfire. She could be a kind witch, though.