The Easter Book
by Francis X. Weiser
224 pp. Paperback
If you enjoyed learning about holiday traditions in The Christmas Book, you are sure to love its sequel, The Easter Book. Father Weiser has here applied his winning formula to an explanation of fasts and feasts of the Lenten and Easter seasons with equally fascinating results.
The Easter Book serves as a companion volume to the author's Christmas Book, which not only became an immediate best seller but established itself as the standard book on the celebration of Christmas and its customs.
The book presents a story of Easter in all its aspects, as it is celebrated in many countries. In addition to the liturgical background of pre-Lent, Ash Wednesday, Passiontide, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and the period immediately following, many nonreligious practices and traditions are explored.
The early origins of such a well-known custos as decorating eggs, egg-rolling, the Easter bunny, hot cross buns, new Easter bonnets, as well as such an unfamiliar one as marble-playing in Good Friday, "heaving," "switching" and "drenching," are traced through history, often to pagan fertility rites. Food plays an important part in the fast and feast of the Easter season, and here are the menus and special treats of many counties, including several recipes. Here too are many hymns and carols, some with music, that are sung at Easter time by many peoples.
The beautiful illustrations by Robert Frankenberg, who contributed so much to The Christmas Book, show with complete historical accuracy some Easter customs throughout the world.
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