S4C - DUDLEY

EASTER

For many of us, Easter signifies the end of gloomy and cold winter months and the beginning of much warmer weather.

Hot Cross Buns have long been associated with the Easter festivities and remain as popular today as ever. In the past the availability of hot cross buns were limited to Good Friday ensuring a near riot outside the premises of the Chelsea Bun Shop in 1792 by people clamouring to get their hands on these spicy delights.

Hot Cross Buns were banned by Oliver Cromwell during his reign and were only reintroduced at the time of the Restoration.

Buns with crosses on them were traditionally made throughout the Lenten fast ready to be eaten over the Easter period. However, it is claimed that, in the 12th Century, a monk made hot cross buns as the only source of food permitted to eat (if desired) on Good Friday, a holy day that lay at the end of the fasting period.

Many people take the bun to symbolise the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, hence the significance of eating them on Good Friday the day of his death. However, we can also point to an earlier superstition when people marked their bread with a cross prior to baking to ensure that the Devil wouldnt get at the food.

There are claims that suggest the hot cross bun originated from the Anglo-Saxon pagan sacramental cakes eaten during the ritual feast to honour their spring Goddess, Eostre.

At the feast, the Saxons would sacrifice an ox to Eostre with the horns becoming a symbol of the festivities and then used to carve the ritual bread. Interestingly, the word bun comes from the Saxon word boun, which in itself means sacred ox.

As with most foods bound to religion, the hot cross bun became associated with several superstitions. The Anglo-Saxon pagans believed that the buns would last a whole twelve months before turning mouldy and would often hang them up in the home to ward off fire and evil forces. Sailors would take hot cross buns to sea in the belief theyd act as a deterrent against shipwreck whilst farmers deemed them sufficient to protect their grain from rats. Moreover, the buns were said to possess mystical properties that could cure certain illnesses.

There are claims that suggest the cross-carved buns represented the moon, which was also associated with Eostre, and its four quarters.

On Good Friday, the Christian church would bake bread and/or buns for the Host and would mark the dough with a cross in order to indicate that they were for his consumption only.

There is an inn situated in London that holds an annual Easter Bun ceremony on Good Friday. Each year a sailor adds a hot cross bun to the many that hang already in commemoration of a poor widow who baked a bun for her only son that never returned from sea.