Thanks, Easter Bunny! Bock Bock!

would flash when somebody was calling you. Yeah, that's how I tech. Yeah at the time, a little sprint flobone brick phone. Yeah. Uh well, like I was saying, Happy Easter, Chuck. Do you do anything for Easter these days? Not really? Yeah, I mean we we got like a bath, get a traditional Easter bass. Yeah, yeah, we do that. I mean it's not like we just don't observe it at all, Like like me. Have you noticed though, that like a lot more stores close on Easter now than they used to?

I have not noticed. That seems to have been a recent occurrence, like the last couple of years. I have noticed. Yeah, it's a it's weird. I think it's not off putting unless you're like trying to buy something, but it's more just like, wait, when did this start? That's my whole thing, Right, when did this start? Like you didn't get the memo, no one asked, you know, And usually, you know, there's a national conversation about whether to close stores or not.

We'll do an episode on it sometimes, that kind of thing. But this one just slipped past me. So Easter has caught me by surprise, or at least closing the stores on it. Yeah, I don't do anything I used to, you know, do the whole spiel when you're a little kid. Yeah, of course, growing up and then the sunrise services. It's a young Baptist. We would Climbstone Mountain. It was very pretty. Actually, climbing some out in the dark wasn't so much fun.

I was always like, it's kind of dangerous. Well, there were flashlights and plenty of people around. That's a good thing about being in the church. They would pick you up and carry you if you broke your leg. That's why there was only one set of footsteps. That's right. Oh yeah, Well, back when I was a kid, we get the Easter basket with what one or two maybe little presents in there I got the break into Electric Boogaloo soundtrack on cassette. Did you really? Easter? Probably my

best Easter president of all time? Yeah. Yeah. And we also observed the tradition of dressing up even more than you would normally for Sunday Church, like your special Easter clothes, like my pot on a tuxedo and like rub lobster on it. No, it would usually be like, you know, I got some new pinks of Spenders and well that's actually like an old traditions of Spenders. Well no, but like a new new Yeah, exactly, that's what I mean. Did you realize that you were following like an ancient

Anglo tradition? Yeah, my mom taught me all about ancient Anglow traditions. That was just Easter was just a little more specials he would dress up a little more basically. Yeah, I got you. You know, I got my new Uh Paisley, did I have to bust out for Easter to go with my mullet? Yeah? I'm not allowed to buy anything new, but you makes me comb my hair before I'm allowed to search for the Easter basket. Well that's nice. Uh, Well, let's talk stuff. Yeah, I mean in researching this came

down to a couple of conclusions. One is that, like everything else that we hold dear, it had its roots and pagan rituals. And uh, two is the Easter, so like it's all over the map, man, Like we could do ten episodes on Easter, let's do it in different traditions, and like when it falls a to who you are, and it's just crazy in its variety. Agreed. Even like when Jerry asked when she were stamish, she just wins Eastern. We're like, who knows? Could be in March, could be

in April. The ecclesiastical Council knows because they're crunching the numbers. Go ahead and drop the dope there, Okay, so um, the dope is that Easter can conceivably fall any time between March one, the the vernal equinox, and April, and it follows after the Paschal moon, which is a full moon. But if you think you're following along so far, prepared to be thrown from the horse, because the Paschal full moon isn't necessarily an actual full moon that you can see. Yeah,

it's not necessarily the astronomical full moon. No, it was at one point in time based on astronomical lunar cycles, but they have since been decoupled from what we currently understand, and so now Easter supposedly falls on the first Sunday after the Paschal moon, which is the first full moon after the vernal equinox. That's right, but there may not be a full moon anywhere in sight as far as

you can tell. But if you're a churchy type who's in charge of crunching these numbers, you know when the Paschal moon comes and goes and that's when MS will be. Is that the same as the ecclesiastical moon? Is that just another name for it? Yeah, the the Paschal moon is a type of ecclesiastical moon, an ecclesiastical moon. Is this church titious? Yeah, church based lunar cycle. Um that in the Paschal moon in particular is the full moon that comes after the vernal equinox. And Pascal comes from

the Greek for passover, so it's the Passover moon. And that makes sense because Easter was originally tied to Passover. It was first Sunday after Passover, right, Yeah. And then in as part of the Gregorian calendar, Pope Gregory the laid down the decree Ah but still it gets more confusing because if you are Eastern Orthodox, you might follow

the Julianne Julianne julian calendar. It's the calendar that's slice in a thin little ship's wrong with me calendar, and that can be like a month later you'll be celebrating Easter if you follow the Julianne calendar that was the one that predated the Gregorian calendar. That's right, and there's actually some really interesting stuff about those. We should do one on calendar sometime. Oh man, it's so vast and weird. Yeah, and I like to keep my calendar simple. Well yeah,

you know who doesn't. I mean, that's the point seven days, month, twelve months, what else you need? Boom? You go further out than that, it gets murky. Yeah. So again, we have no idea when Easter falls this year, but we can tell you for certain it will fall between March one in April for all the reasons we just said March twenty two, twenty first, which is the vernal equinox.

So there you go. All right, Um, So all of this is to say that Easter, if you're not getting the idea yet that we're using words like ecclesiastical and a word that's derived from the Greek for Passover. Easter is a very ancient tradition and custom in Christianity, but it's not mentioned in the Bible. Um the whole crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which is what the Easter cello

Easter season is meant to commemory. It's all in there, but they don't go and then now go forth and celebrate this that's not in there, right, And that is because it was co opted and absorbed by the Christian Church from ancient even more ancient um pagan holidays and rituals. Well, I think it initially was kind of like like they celebrated it right around Passover. I think it was kind of one of those things were like, hey, we've got this thing, we're commemorating, uh at about the same time

you're used to commemorating Passover. So I know you're born Jewish and your most gonna be disappointed, but come over to the Christian side. And then later on when it spread out into Europe, it kind of took on all of the other stuff as well. Yeah, but you know, even biblical scholars and and most historians will agree that it was originally a pagan festival. Uh. And the word

Easter is from Saxon. The Saxon in origin e A s t r a Estra the goddess of Spring, and sacrifices were made in her honor around the same time as Passover, like you were saying, and so by the eight tree Anglo Saxon's basically co opted this name to

uh coincide with the celebration of Christ resurrection. Yeah boom, And there's there was this article in The Guardian about the pagan roots of Easter um and the author I don't remember her name, but she basically says, like, you can take it even further back than that, to like Egypt and Mesopotamia and the if you've seen um Zeitgeist, which I realized is not the most credible movie on the planet, but it's interesting and there are some interesting

conclusions in comparisons drawn between resurrection myths of you know, the Egyptians and the Mespotamians and others, and you know, the ones that celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Christ. And this author makes the case that like you can take the origins of Easter that far back even but then as it kind of went along and along and a long, it just picked up. Local traditions are absorbed or folded in local traditions until we have this Easter

that we understand today, which includes the Easter Bunny. And the Easter Bunny apparently is born out of that pagan ritual um, the fernal equinox ritual spring ritual for how did you pronounce her name? The goddess of fertility and and renewal. Oh yeah, est her symbol was the hair, which became the rabbit, I guess, which are two different things, by the way, Yes they are. And so nowadays we have the Easter Bunny, which is a magical bunny that

can lay eggs. Yeah, and the Germanic of course, the Germans always have their finger and everything, you know, like Chris, Christmas and all these holidays. Um, they always have their finger and everything. What does that even mean? Um? It is said that Ostara healed a wounded bird she found in the woods by changing it to a hair, and it was still partially bird though, and the hair showed its gratitude in return to the goddess by laying eggs

as gifts. So also, and like we said, there's while people agree that it is pagan and origins, there are many many stories and no one can settle on the one saying no, it was ishtar right, But Star is one of them that they think could have been the

original had had its roots there. Yeah. Now, if you're a Christian um and you don't have like your hands clamped to your ears and you're stomping your feet and like go la la la really loud, right now, you're probably saying, hold on, fellas, Yes, the Easter bunny not Christian in origin. Um, the the Easter egg not necessarily

Christian in origin. Yes, there's a lot of pagan um land rituals, natural nature rituals that are incorporated in But if you take the whole thing back to the original as far as Christianity goes, what the whole thing is celebrating or observing is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

And so specific days over the Easter holiday have been um set aside to commemorate this problem, this process that took place about thirty c. Yeah, and even you know historians that say now it's you know, pagan in origin and it was maybe ishtar Um, they're not saying that Christ wasn't a person who was crucified, and uh, they're saying that they have. There were so many parallels that all these things kind of became crunched together at one

point it was co opted. I'm trying to be respectful here, you know, does that make sense? So like they're not saying that it doesn't exist, but it was. It was a pattern, widespread pattern, and Christians like just kind of absorbed it. Well, yeah, it's a celebration part in this Guardian article again, and I think it's also in Zeitgeist.

You can take it back even further before Mesopotamians and Egyptians ever existed and say that there's legends of the sun so and dying and then being resurrected um, and that you could connect those things to the sun as u n dying as winner sets in and then being resurrected in the spring, and connecting that with being crucified on the cross to the Southern Cross constellation. So these

are possibly very very ancient conceptions. Yeah, and many and there were many, many stories of of of important people dying and being resurrected and some were born in December. Right, So if we have offended you we apologize. We weren't trying to. As a matter of fact, we just did a lot of tap d answering if you ask me. Yeah, I mean, it's history. Sure. So we'll get back to Easter in the Christian observance of Easter right after this.

So chuck where you're back. And like I said a little while ago, Um, Easter in the Christian tradition commemorates the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ, right, And so days are set aside to commemorate specific dates and specific events in Christ's life, and they're actually believed, at least by Christians and I think some historians as well, to kind of closely resemble the days of the week that these things happened. Yeah, I mean there's a whole

Easter season, you know. Yeah, So the Easter season is technically forty six days long. And um, most people think, well, Lent is the Easter season and it's forty days long. True, But there are six Sundays in the Easter season, Easter Sunday being the sixth one, and those are considered special days where Lent doesn't apply. They exist outside of Lent because they're meant to be celebratory masses. That's right, so

you technically don't have to observe your Lenten fast these days. Yeah, and Lenten was the original Middle English um, which is where lent came from. Meats spring. I thought it meant I'm not eating chocolate right now, it might for some people. Uh So let's talk about the season um Lent we mentioned um six weeks. Well, let's back up a little bit.

Should we talk about Shrove Tuesday first? Yes, okay, you might know it is fat Tuesday or Marty Gras, yeah, which and I think fat Tuesday came from France when

they would eat all the fatty foods ahead of uh Lent. Right, So basically that you know when you when you go through Lent, what you what you're supposed to do is sacrifice something or maybe many things, right, because you're commemorating Jesus is fast forty days after being baptized and um, practically speaking, back in the day, I guess Thomas Aquinas and some of his buds decided that when you are fasting for Lent, you're you're abstaining from animals that your

food that is killed, so you're not eating chicken or duck or pig, cow, anything that you killed to eat. They decide fish too. Don't get me started on fish. Uh, And they decided that, Oh after thinking about this and talking about and discussing it and having counsels, and finally they came to a decree that not only is the food that you have to kill forbidden food during Lent,

the products from those food are as well. So basically they're saying, like, if you're a if you're an observant Christian, you are you go vegan for the forty six days or forty days of Lents. Right. Many people, though, just choose embolically too, Like you said, I'm going to give up chocolate, just something that they love. I'm gonna make a sacrifice. I'm gonna give it up for Lent. Right. But the point of Shrove Tuesday is this is the

last day before Lent. You don't want all this food to go to waste, so you make a bunch of stuff and you eat all of your supply and you get fat, and then you go into the Lent season of Lent fast. Right. Yeah, the UK, like, I've never heard of Shrove Tuesday, but it's big in the UK pancakes or the traditional meal because they contained fatty milk

and eggs and things like that. Yeah, and eggs are forbidden because they're product of those animals you kill well and stuff that would go bad over the next forty days. So it's also a way to not waste your food. And uh, it's the Tuesday before ash Wednesday, um, which

is next. So ash Wednesday is the first day of the Lenten Fast, That's right, and um, basically it it You're you're going into this fast and you are, um, you're just kind of becoming uber Christian at that moment, like you're taking on like just just just super Christian persona and you're like it's very solemn. And to commemorate it, you get a cross of ashes placed on your forehead and the cross is made from the palm fronds from last year's Palm Sunday service should be, which we'll talk

about later. But they save them, they burn them, and they used the ash of these blessed fronds to put crosses on the foreheads of the penitents the next Ash Wednesday. Yeah, and the palm fronds are significant as the what they used to um fan Jesus when he was resurrected. Correct, No, when he wrote into Jerusalem on a donkey. And it was when he wrote into Jerusalem triumphantly to take his title as the King of Kings that they wave palm fronts. Yeah,

they're like Jesus is here. That's the impression I have of the palm fronts. Um Man. I was really paying attention in confirmation class. Um, so quickly, if you see someone, if you're not very religious, if you see someone with the ashes on their head, um, anytime in the spring, don't say, hey, you've got something in your head. You got a little uh yeah, don't do that. Yeah, because it's there for a reason. Um. All right, where are we now? We are at Lent. Yeah, so we're in

the middle of Lent. You're starting to think, wow, some eggs would be great. I wish I had some shrove cakes or anything made from an animal or animal itself. Or you're not saying that. Maybe you're just fine with it. Yeah, there's a lot of people who don't necessarily follow that traditional vegan fast. Um, but we'll give up something for lent. The chocolate candy. I always tried homework. It never worked. Um, did you really. Yeah, Yeah, it's just jokingly, you know,

I'd be like, I'm gonna give up homework. Okay, I'm never even growing up in the church, I never observed Um maybe it was Baptist didn't observe it as much, but I never observed Lent. It was big time Catholic, especially with my family. It was like you gotta give

up something. So typically you'll give up chocolate, and you give up chocolate and then when Easter Sunday comes along and Len is over, yeah, you get chocolate all over your face, which is actually following in a pretty old tradition, because that's where Easter eggs came from the giving of Easter eggs. It was a forbidden food that you couldn't

have during Lent. So then when Easter Sunday came, people would give each other eggs as gifts, like, hey, enjoy the heck out of this egg because you have an ad one in forty days. Yeah, and the egg obviously also being a symbol of um birth, new life, new life, spring, pagan vernal rituals. Perhaps um so now we are at Palm Sunday, that's right. And then, like we said, this commemorates Jesus triumphantly coming into Jerusalem to claim his title,

and people wave palms to welcome him in. And then so people have palm fronds at Palm Sunday services, and remember they hang on to those and burn them and use them for the next Easter is ash Wednesday. So this is the last Sunday before Easter. I have palm fronds in my yard. You should sell them to some Christians. Well, it's going to give them away. Oh I guess you could do that too. But last year's palm fronds are now hanging dead on my palm tree. Well it's they

don't have to be a year old. It's just the ones that were used during the Palm Sunday service. And we're blessed last year, so they probably wouldn't want my palms. I don't want year old palms. You want like fresh ones for Palm Sunday. Yeah, but you want them to be old for the following Ash Wednesday a year later. That's right. And holy water I don't think we mentioned, is used, uh with the ashes to put on the forehead. Oh yeah, yeah, makes a little very important mostly like

a paste, charcoali paste. Okay, then we're at mondy Thursday. Yeah, the wildly underrated Mandy Thursday. Um, why is it wildly underrated? Because you never hear about it? It's true, you know, I didn't know anything about it until we researched this. Yeah, Monday spelling uh m a u n d y not Monday Thursday, it'd be weird. Um. And a mond or manned is a basket and they were used by fishermen

to put their fish in. So many many years ago there was a fair held in Norwich or Norfolk today and basically a big just sale where like a flea market, and the fisherman would carry their what this flea market associated with Easter's hilarious? Yeah it is people would sell their wares, you know, or let's call it a not a flea market, but what do you call it when they have the farmer's market, like a farmer's market or like a market. Yeah, but they were selling uff from

the farm. Yeah, but they also had like clothing and stuff too, so it's a good point. Supermarket Okay, it's a supermarket. Um. The fisherman obviously would put the fish in their mom's and um that's basically where the name came from. It's kind of that simple. Yeah, everybody would just come together and um buy new clothes. You would buy new clothes. And that's where the ancient tradition that your mom had you follow with your pink suspenders. Something new.

The Easter bonnet, they believe, came from that too, new little Easter dress or Easter shoes or something like that. Having something new on Easter. Customarily you will buy that on Mandy Thursday, or at the very least it came out of the Mandy Thursday market from the old English, that's right. And the other tradition we had was to sneer at all the people who would show up for church,

who we never saw the rest of the year. Oh yeah, we'd be like, oh, I remember that Eastern Christmas saw him last Yeah, I saw him a few months ago. There's whole sub soul of the subside of Christians that are like Easter Christmas Christians. That's right. They just go for the two big ones. I remember them. So you judge, huh, I did so wrong? I cast the out. Are we a good Friday yet? Fine? Please tell me we're a good Friday? Um that day. Back in the ancient times,

the first two centuries. Good and God we're sort of synonymous. And I guess is that where the word good comes from. I would guess as a descriptor of God. Yes, they couldn't be bothered to keep that second. Oh, en, that's right. But Good Friday is the commemoration of the crucifixion on the Cross, the actually day of crucifixion, and um, it is somber, but they want to observe the peace and not necessarily the sadness. All right, it's not supposed to

be a dave morning. No, no, it's but it's still somber. I don't know how you put it. I remember Good Friday messes. I can't quite describe the tone of them. But yeah, it's not it's not you're not celebrating, but you're also not. Um it's a little more serious though, maybe yeah, okay, um. And it's just so interesting these these days, these holy days during the Eastern season. You learned so much because the whole thing is like this

happened this day, like on a Friday. They're pretty sure that Christ was crucified on a Friday, because remember, the Romans were in charge of actually executing him, and they kept excellent records, so we have a pretty good idea of all this stuff. Um. So you you just learned so much like the Stations of the Cross, did you guys do that? I don't think any Catholic church has different places. They can be really elaborate, they can be and staying glass, they can be just a little number

or something like that. It's the station of the Cross, and it follows Christ's path while he's carrying the crucifix and being tortured along the way up to cavalry. And um, it's placed on the cross. And as you know, it's all just just steeping, uh, this ancient tradition into you, this young ankle kate, you know. But at the same time, you know, if you're just paying attention, it's really interesting

historically as yeah. Um, and you learned it over and over and over and over again because you hear the same thing every Easter. Yeah. I think that's you know, it's part of the ideas. You get it ingrained in you so deeply. You know. Um, we should have just called this former Baptist and former Catholic hang on by the skin of their teeth. Well, let's keep everybody else hanging and um, let's break before Easter. Huh yeah, alright, Chuck, we're back. Let's get to the fun stuff. It's Easter,

that's right, Easter. So we said good Friday, isn't It's not a day of morning, but it's a somber day. Easter is the exact opposite of that. First of all, we should say, yeah, it's Saturday. Off, Now it's Sunday, Easter Sunday, and it's a day of celebration. Yeah, a lot of fun. Um. You in your family, you might have Easter egg hunts. I looked up the origin of the hunt itself, and I couldn't find for sure, because

I don't think they know for sure. But there are some historians who think they can trace it to Martin Luther, the Protestant Christian reformer. He's supposedly the guy who invented the Christmas tree. To wow, man, look at that got a long legacy. Christmas tree and the Easter egg hunt? How about that? Um? So East he supposedly definitely had Easter egg hunts. Supposedly definitely um where he hid eggs, men had eggs, and women and children would look for

the eggs. And they think it may be tied with people looking and hunting for Jesus tomb um. But that isn't verified because some you know, some of these traditions, no one can trace back the exact origin. You know. Well, yeah, but if it was Martin Luther, I mean that wasn't too terribly long ago. Now that's a good point. You mentioned eggs, uh, And we talked about eggs being a symbol of newness and fertility and rebirth, and this goes

back to dyeing eggs. Goes back to ancient Egypt and the Persians who would die eggs and exchange them with friends, like you said, as a reminder of the resurrection. And I guess, just to make a plain white or brown egg look a little more fancy, they died him colorful. Yeah. And so eggs are also customarily died red to to symbolize the blood of Christ. They're also dyed green in Germany and Austria. Yeah. I looked all over for this this.

The only reason I could find is that they're they're meant to symbolize the bitter herbs that Christ was forced to eat while he was on the cross. Interesting, pretty pretty on collie, Huh. Yeah, But they I think in Germany they still do that Thursdayday, Green Egg Day. I should also give a shout out chuck to our slide show on awesome Easter eggs. We'll definitely post that on the podcast page. And scary Easter bunnies. Yeah, you had a couple, look at easter ones. Will put those both

the good There are some scary easter bunnies out there. Um, hot cross buns again, not a part of my Baptist upbringing. No, did you guys have hot cross buns? No, that's pretty British. And um, they had them in New Zealand. I've never seen a reform in person until New Zealand. Yeah, yeah, I haven't either. But yeah, apparently they're sweet buns. Yeah,

custom merrily baked and eaten and um, it's funny. Is apparently is again an ancient pagan Anglo tradition to bake sweet buns as an offering to the gods around the vernal equinox for this ring festival. And I guess the Christian Church said, uh, let's let's stop doing that again and again and it didn't take in. Finally, like put a cross on there, Okay, we'll kill you. Put a cross on, So they put across on and now you

have hot cross buns. Well, supposedly the cross was there before, but it didn't symbolize that because they baked the cake in the form of a bowl for Zeus and there was a cross to represent the horns. Yeah, but again, let's like, let's make some changes to that. And uh so hot cross buns are still a thing. I've never eaten one though I haven't either, But apparently they're sweet. Oh are they? Well? Yeah, like they are they sticky buns? I don't think, but I think they're sweet. Okay, we'll

go good, all right. Uh And I think what I thought was pretty interesting with some of the weird um traditions around the world. They're weird because they're different. Yeah. I mean when I say weird, I just mean unusual. To me. Here's a big dummy peculiar. Yeah, nothing apparently is weird about any of this. Uh. In Bulgaria they had a little thing called egg tapping, but they still do um. And it's basically like the old pencil game used to play in elementary school, the old stab your

buddy in the arm with a pencil. Nope, When you would play the pencil popper game when you would try and break the other guy's pencil and they would try to break yours. It's basically what you do with eggs. You take hardboiled eggs and you tap the other person's egg, hoping to crack their egg but not your own. And you keep doing this until you get your egg cracked, and then you're out. And the last person in Bulgaria who has an uncracked egg is said to have, you know,

good good luck throughout the year prosperity. They get a fifty gift card to long Horn Steaks. That's right. Um. There's another cute Bulgarian tradition to chuck that where the grandmother, while she's coloring eggs with the kids, will color one red and have the kids come over and she rubs it on their cheeks in order to bestow you know, health and robustness to them, like rosy cheeks. Yeah, and like the cutest thing you've ever heard. It's adorable, especially

if they're wearing pink suspenders at the time. That's right, And especially if the dye is made from a non toxic let them work their teeth is immediately fall out. That would be no good, uh. In Mexico they have another egg game. And uh, the way I see it is they empty the egg of the yolk and the and the white. You know how you can poke the little holes and either end of an egg and blow it out. And then they put um, I guess confetti in there and then they smash them on each other's heads.

They blow the egg out and blow the confettian. Uh. And I got one liner for everything you do. All right? How about how about the US where we just have parades? Uh? Yeah, I got nothing. You put me on the spot. Yeah, parades here in the US and Atlantic City they've had one for about a close to a hundred and fifty years. Now, did you know that? No, I had no idea there's an Easter parade. I'd want to see that. I know that when I think about the New York one. There's

a New York Easter parade. Yeah. Um, I think Fifth Avenue has an Easter parade. Oh yeah, yeah, I see that. And Irving Berlin has a song called Easter Parade, and of course the Big White House Easter roll. I knew about this. I always thought it was just the Easter egg hunt, though I didn't know about the Easter egg roll. I think it's part of it where you rolling Easter egg across the south flant of the White House. It's kind of like track and field Day. No, that's the

egg toss. Well, the whole thing altogether. It's like a hunt. There's like an egg roll, there's an egg toss. There's celebrities around the USO tour that stopped by. It's like field Day. George Clooney is there all right, given out eggs and you get your commemorative egg do yeah. And apparently it started out Congress had it um on the Capitol and the President, well a specific President Rotherford B.

Hayes said no, this is the president's thing. Now we're moving this to the White House, and then did yeah. Announced just one of those things, sort of like the sparing the turkey on Thanksgiving. This big press op is what it is. Well, it's funny that you mentioned sparing the turkey on Thanksgiving because there's this other tradition in um in where is it, Haltan, Leicestershire, right in England,

and it's the opposite of sparing the turkey. So there's a tradition in this little town that a wealthy woman was spared from being gored to death by a bull when a hair ran across its path and I guess

distracted the bowl or something. So for some reason, to thank the hair, she deeded some of her land to the local church and said, you can have this land, but you have to make sure that all of the parishioners and everyone in the town gets some hair pie like pie made from one of these rabbit type things that saved her life. That's the way to thank something for saving your life. You and you're ancestors are gonna end up in a meat pie that we're gonna make

every year for everybody. Yeah. Four pounds of flour, two pounds of large two hairs, three pounds of onions, seven pounds of potatoes and seasoning, and you have yourself a deliciously disgusting hair pie. I think it sounds good. Yeah, well I don't eat rabbit and stuff, so there or meat pies. Really really, this takes a lot of boxes for me. You mean I tried um. I can't remember

what it's called them. It was a type of meat pie again in New Zealand, UM at McDonald's, and it was like this, like cut up meat and gravy and cheese like pop pie. Basically, it's what you call it. It was so disgustingly good. Yeah, it tastes good though, Yeah, but I felt in that McDonald's really bad about myself with everybody. But it still tasted good. Do you know what meat it was? Uh? They claimed beef. So it's a beefy gravy, yes, with cheese in it. Yeah, so

it's delicious actually. Um. But then here's where it gets really a little odd to me. To go along with the hair pie, they have um, uh, something called the bottle kicking, which is basically rugby with a beer kick. Yeah. Three beer kigs, two of them are full of a gallon of beer each. This is part of that wealthy lady who deeded the land's request that not only did you have to serve a meat pie to everybody, you also had to give them as much ale as they wanted.

So all this is commemorated in a the making of a hair pie by the people of this little town. They carry it through the town up to St. Mark's I believe it's St. Mark St Michael's Church, and um, the I guess the priest, the local priest cuts the pie up, hands it out to the crowd that takes some of that pie over to another place that's called hair Pie Bank, which is a not a bank, but an embankment. It's like a procession. The ends there, and

that's where this bottle kicking match starts. Yeah, and it's it's it's a couple of neighboring villages that basically battle it out. And like we said, they're basically barrels of ale. Like I think you said to have ale, one does not.

And you know, there's all the ceremony that goes into the actual starting of the match, and then when the match starts, it's a game of sort of rugby your football if you're American, where you're trying, you know, you're carrying this thing around, running with it, trying to get it, kicking it, yeah, kicking it, running with it, doing whatever you can to get it, handing it off to your friends to uh to advance it forward with obstacles along

the way like fists. And this is another clear example of Christianity co opting a pagan ritual because hair Pie Bank is an old pagan place of worse. And if this whole thing doesn't smack of pagan tradition, like pagan festival games. I don't know what does. Plus the chairman, the guy who's running the bottle kicking competition, is called the Master of the Stow as t O w e oh. I thought he was called the wicker man pretty much. Yeah, all the started it's Stonehenge basically, but now it's an

inter tradition and the Master of the stow. Stow means a place of worship among Anglo pagan's, so they still even call him the Master of the Stow. It's been dressed up that little, yeah, But they have a good time and it's bizarre, and they they advanced the barrel over to their the way the best I can see is that to their to like the line of their village. The property line of their village is like the end zone,

I guess. Then they drink it right, well, the winners drink it in front of the losers, but just to kind of make them sore and rub it. If I know my friends over there, there's plenty of beer aside from those two barrels right to go around. And then the one sober person is in charge of collecting all of the palm fronds from palm Sunday and storing them until next year in that giant wicker man in my backyard. Well,

that's Easter, Chuck, that's Easter. If you want to know more about Easter, you can type in those that word in the search part of how Stuff Works dot com. And since I said that, it's time for a listener, ma'am, thank you Easter bunny. Boch boch. Remember that I'm gonna call this um a little more on tea. I got a couple of these actually in the coming weeks, because boy, we've got some good feedback. People love their tea. Uh.

Greetings from Kyoto fellows. I'm a longtime listener. Um. I actually started listening when I just moved to Japan and didn't know anyone yet, so you guys kept me company. It was really great to hear you talking about Macha on your latest podcast about tea, because I had no idea it was catching on state side here in Kyoto. Macha flavored. Every ng is given. There's even a drink

made of Woolong tea and Macha liqueur um. Apparently, I don't think she likes the look, war though she says I live down the street from where one of the three main schools of t CEREMONI used to be. Uh. And while I'm here, I thought i'd add my two cents about pronouncing Japanese words. Um, they're basically just five foul sounds in Japanese. A is a long a like ball rather than apple. I sounds like e. E sounds like oh, sounds like oh as in rainbow. You sounds

like oh is in goo. And why is an a vowel? It will always be connected to another vowel. Ah for you to how about that? Okay? Uh? And she this is Nikki. She's getting up for cherry blossom festival in Kyoto, which I bet is gorgeous. And um she said, Josh that if you ever venture out to Kyoto again, that she would love to let you know some things that you can do. And um, she says, I love the podcast. You can't wait to the next one, And that is Nicky Maller. Thanks a lot. Yeah, um, yeah, I can't

wait to see the cherry blossoms there. Deec has got an amazing one too. Um. Yeah, it's beautiful, it's lovely trees. Uh if and Chuck, I gotta tell you it makes a lovely coffee. To Starbucks over in Okinawa had a cherry blossom flavored coffee, which is this It's kind of a made up sweet flavor, but it is so it's not derived from the tree. I don't see how it could be interesting, but it has like it fits perfectly. You're like, yes, this is what an ideal cartoonist Japanese

version of the taste of cherry bossom would be. It's perfect um. Anyway, if you want to get in touch with us, you can tweet to us at s y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an emails to stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at at home on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com.