When Easter eggs came to Norway, they were both eaten, decorated and placed between the breasts as a check trick.
Eggs have been associated with Easter for several centuries.
According to cultural historian Herleik Baklid, we can at least trace the tradition back to Germany in the 13th century.
Some historians have drawn the lines much further, to Chinese mythology or pre-Christian beliefs in Egypt. Baklid is not convinced.
– I think you have to be a bit careful about drawing too long lines, says the researcher at the University of South-Eastern Norway.
A Christian metaphor
So what do eggs really have to do with Easter?
The egg has long been a symbol of fertility. But it is also a symbol of the Christian Easter message. So that Jesus rose from the dead.
In the same way that the chicken comes out of the egg, Jesus rises from the grave, Baklid explains.
The researcher does not have an answer to how this metaphor arose.
In any case, the comparison has given eggs a special place in Easter, both as decoration and food.
Eggs forbidden during Lent
At the same time, the tradition of eating eggs at Easter may also have had a practical explanation, according to historian Serin Quinn at the University of Warwick, England.
In the Middle Ages, when the 40-day fast before Easter was held, meat and eggs were often forbidden to eat.
Therefore, eggs became a long-awaited dish when Lent was over, writes Warwick in the magazine the Conversation.
Colored with onion and coffee
In Norway, however, the custom of eating eggs at Easter is a relatively new tradition.
Only at the beginning of the 20th century did it become common among ordinary people, according to Baklid.
Because although there is evidence that eggs were eaten at Easter in Trøndelag as early as 1770, this was probably reserved for the upper class.
As early as around 1800, however, several Norwegians began to decorate eggs at Easter. Then they were often colored by being boiled together with things such as onions, heather or coffee.
Check trick with eggs between the breasts
In South-West Norway, the eggs were used as a kind of check trick in the 19th century. Girls put eggs between their breasts and gave them to the boy they liked best.
There are also depictions of an egg competition among boys, for example in Telemark. The competition was called fighting.
– Boys each had their own egg and would bump them against each other and see who had the strongest egg, says Baklid.
