With Easter approaching, we thought we would post news about Easter traditions from around the world.
Easter Monday is known in Hungary as locsolkodás or Wet Monday.
During this day, girls, dressed in traditional clothes, are bathed with buckets or bottles of water by boys singing nursery rhymes. Today, the tradition is more mellowed: the boys sprinkle the girls with rosewater or perfume and receive coloured eggs, sweets, glasses of schnapps or coins in return.
Already in the past, Easter Monday was a day marked by numerous pranks. The boys would show up at the girls’ houses at dawn and, after waking them up, take them to the nearest stream to bathe; this was believed to make them good wives.
Girls, on the other hand, would paint up to 30 eggs to give to the boy they were interested in. This boy would keep the eggs for a few weeks and then check them: the one that lost the most colour would indicate that the girl who had given it as a gift was the one who wanted it most.
The locsolkodás is celebrated all over the country, but the most traditional version can be observed in the village of Hollókő, a UNESCO heritage site since 1987 with buildings dating back to the 17th century.
