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Embroidery of a traditional Sorbian Easter egg, made by me as an Easter gift for family members.

Feat: Blown-out sorbian eggs my aunt brought us years ago.

Although English isn’t my first language, I’ll try to explain the symbolism:

In Lusatia/ the Spreewald - more specifically, in Sorbian Culture - before every Easter we are meant to decorate the Easter eggs with the special technique, called Bossiertechnik, which requires wax, feathers, needle pens and natural dye. The decorated eggs are a gift from Godmothers and godfathers to their Godchild, as well as the Patensemmel, which is some kind of a bread roll.

Even though me and my sister don’t have godparents, every year, our aunt brought us her beautifully hand painted eggs. So this year, I also have a special gift for her and my uncle!

Historically, the tradition of Sorbian Eastereggs comes both from Christianity and Paganism, as well as medieval Folklore. Each symbol and color has it’s own meaning. After they’ve been gifted to the godchildren, they were rolled over a field for fertility and a good harvest. Another fertility spell was to ride a horse around the field. Both traditions were varied over the centuries - today, the Osterreiter are riding from one village to the other, to proclaim the resurrection of the Lord, and kids are playing Eierrollen as game (you and your friends are rolling your eggs down a hill - to win the game, your egg has to be the farthest or beat other eggs).

As I said, these colorful eggs don’t come without a special meaning. Of course, everything can be interpreted different from town to town, but overall, they just bring you good fortune.

So here’s how to interpret mine:

The suns you can see (in the middle, on the sides and on the top and the bottom) will bring you health and growth - they also symbolize, well, a sun. Putting three triangles into an ornament, is one of the strongest protections spells - the circles made of single triangles are there for protection too. In this egg, they not only protect the ones I’ll give this embroidery to, but also my wish for health and growth. The “V"s - called Crow’s foot - are used to boost the other symbols. The four single white flowers are meant to ensure a good future and more growth.

I used different tones of green for health and luck. White is like a basic color you’ll find in nearly every egg - some might say it stands for the holy spirit or Purity. Yellow is the color of the sun (I just used it for the aesthetic you know XD). Blue is meant to symbolise things like healing, peace or harmony.

So, long story short, the embroidery I did for my family members can be interpreted as a lucky charm for health, growth and peace.