HISTORY OF THE MAGYAR EASTER-EGG
Excerpt from Tomory’s Kezdeteink
The world’s most ancient Easter Egg came to the surface in our Magyar homeland, Hungary, even though our schools never mentioned this fact and I too learned of its existence by accident, reading Ferenc Móra’s book: “Travel through the underground Magyar lands.” (Utazás a földalatti Magyarországon). I am going to quote a section of this book, which deals with the above title:
“With these I just about told you everything, that never made it to the shelves of Museums, and they would not make it probably today either, even though we have shelves, and would have a place for them… These are the usual decorative items, swords, stirrups. metal hangings of the leather belts of man, and women’s what-nots. Only one very unusual item is among these: eggshells, which we found in a very meagerly buried old lady’s hand. The egg, considered a travel provision to the afterlife, is quite frequent in the so called Hun graves. We had cemetaries, in which I found eggs in three-hundred graves.
But this is not such an egg, like the others. This egg was painted brown with something, and a regularly turning, ladder-like motif was scratched into the brown paint, to show the white of the egg-shell, appearing now like garlands. I found this decoration on all the seventy three fragments of this egg. Here I have to mention that this honorable Easter egg came out in seventy three fragments from the hard, dry, sodic soil, in which only a pick-axe can make a dent. The fifteen-hundred years of tight grip of the old lady’s hand had already broken it, the tip of the shovel made also a dent, and so the statistical number of the fragments were greatly multiplied, by the time it came to rest in a box.
Excerpt from Tomory’s Kezdeteink
The world’s most ancient Easter Egg came to the surface in our Magyar homeland, Hungary, even though our schools never mentioned this fact and I too learned of its existence by accident, reading Ferenc Móra’s book: “Travel through the underground Magyar lands.” (Utazás a földalatti Magyarországon). I am going to quote a section of this book, which deals with the above title:
“With these I just about told you everything, that never made it to the shelves of Museums, and they would not make it probably today either, even though we have shelves, and would have a place for them… These are the usual decorative items, swords, stirrups. metal hangings of the leather belts of man, and women’s what-nots. Only one very unusual item is among these: eggshells, which we found in a very meagerly buried old lady’s hand. The egg, considered a travel provision to the afterlife, is quite frequent in the so called Hun graves. We had cemetaries, in which I found eggs in three-hundred graves.
But this is not such an egg, like the others. This egg was painted brown with something, and a regularly turning, ladder-like motif was scratched into the brown paint, to show the white of the egg-shell, appearing now like garlands. I found this decoration on all the seventy three fragments of this egg. Here I have to mention that this honorable Easter egg came out in seventy three fragments from the hard, dry, sodic soil, in which only a pick-axe can make a dent. The fifteen-hundred years of tight grip of the old lady’s hand had already broken it, the tip of the shovel made also a dent, and so the statistical number of the fragments were greatly multiplied, by the time it came to rest in a box.
The above text refers to the Avar-Magyar origin
of this 1500 year old egg,
excavated in the Körös-Zombor region.
My faithful helpers, Mr. Sebestyén and Czógler, both teachers, made a strong commitment to make an organic whole of the seventy three crumbs. As dedicated, as they are, they will succeed doing just this. (pp. 446-447)”
And one can see clearly in the above drawing in the Magyarság Néprajza (Magyar ethnographic paper), they succeeded in their efforts. (V.3l:248)”
The egg itself, called mony, and its brown color carries the religious symbols of the Avar-Magyar group. I also have to mention, that in our childhood we cooked the easter-eggs in the brown outer shells of onions, which gives a nice light brown color, and we too scratched the design into this base after it dried.
Thus arriving to the present, I would like to mention Márton Balázs, the director of the Kézdivásárhely girl school, who collected 1500 Easter egg decorations. I am quoting now only one sentence of his study published in the Csernáton papers of 1992: “… inadvertandly comes the question to the mind of the viewer. where does the limitless, creative imagination of the folk spirit come from, which does not recognize stereotypes, and where does the amazing taste come from, which allows all these to manifest…” “….by then the viewer will recognize, that these shapes and colors are in the most intimate relationship with the people who created them, their spiritual lives, their living circumstances, because in these their nationality, their religion, level of culture, their work, taste, inclination, joy, sorrow, love and the starry sky above them, along with the greatness of nature, their plants and animals, etc. all manifest.”
Looking at the forms, colors, connections one realizes, that our people preserved the higher consciousness of the Gold Age. These were later continued by Adorján Magyar (linguist, speaking nine languages, artist, trained in Florence, ethnographer, working on discovering the fullness of Magyar folk culture all his life) discovered on the embroideries of Magyar women the exact form of the Copper Age houses in this land. From Márton Balázs we also learn, that the forms of the Golden Age appear not only on easter eggs, but the embroideries of women, and also their folk songs. I am attempting to translate one of them:
In the little front garden of this house
Is a lovely rosebush
The Good Creator should raise her
In a lovely rose garden.
I water the rose bush
And I ask God to send
blessings upon her head.
A red-egg may be my payment.
(Here I must mention, that in Magyar folk language the Easter egg is usually called red-egg, regardless of its color. On Easter Monday the young men come to “water the rosebush”, the girls of the town, who give them in exchange a ‘red-egg’. The lad, who got the most eggs is the hero of the town that day.)
Below the designs are from the Palóc-Magyar region. Erdély (Transylvania), and the Transdanubian Baranya and Zala counties.
of this 1500 year old egg,
excavated in the Körös-Zombor region.
My faithful helpers, Mr. Sebestyén and Czógler, both teachers, made a strong commitment to make an organic whole of the seventy three crumbs. As dedicated, as they are, they will succeed doing just this. (pp. 446-447)”
And one can see clearly in the above drawing in the Magyarság Néprajza (Magyar ethnographic paper), they succeeded in their efforts. (V.3l:248)”
The egg itself, called mony, and its brown color carries the religious symbols of the Avar-Magyar group. I also have to mention, that in our childhood we cooked the easter-eggs in the brown outer shells of onions, which gives a nice light brown color, and we too scratched the design into this base after it dried.
Thus arriving to the present, I would like to mention Márton Balázs, the director of the Kézdivásárhely girl school, who collected 1500 Easter egg decorations. I am quoting now only one sentence of his study published in the Csernáton papers of 1992: “… inadvertandly comes the question to the mind of the viewer. where does the limitless, creative imagination of the folk spirit come from, which does not recognize stereotypes, and where does the amazing taste come from, which allows all these to manifest…” “….by then the viewer will recognize, that these shapes and colors are in the most intimate relationship with the people who created them, their spiritual lives, their living circumstances, because in these their nationality, their religion, level of culture, their work, taste, inclination, joy, sorrow, love and the starry sky above them, along with the greatness of nature, their plants and animals, etc. all manifest.”
Looking at the forms, colors, connections one realizes, that our people preserved the higher consciousness of the Gold Age. These were later continued by Adorján Magyar (linguist, speaking nine languages, artist, trained in Florence, ethnographer, working on discovering the fullness of Magyar folk culture all his life) discovered on the embroideries of Magyar women the exact form of the Copper Age houses in this land. From Márton Balázs we also learn, that the forms of the Golden Age appear not only on easter eggs, but the embroideries of women, and also their folk songs. I am attempting to translate one of them:
In the little front garden of this house
Is a lovely rosebush
The Good Creator should raise her
In a lovely rose garden.
I water the rose bush
And I ask God to send
blessings upon her head.
A red-egg may be my payment.
(Here I must mention, that in Magyar folk language the Easter egg is usually called red-egg, regardless of its color. On Easter Monday the young men come to “water the rosebush”, the girls of the town, who give them in exchange a ‘red-egg’. The lad, who got the most eggs is the hero of the town that day.)
Below the designs are from the Palóc-Magyar region. Erdély (Transylvania), and the Transdanubian Baranya and Zala counties.
