Children's Holidays in the Netherlands, 1902
From Dutch Life in Town and Country by P. M. Hough, 1902.
From: 1902 C.E. To: 1902 C.E.
Location: The Netherlands
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Dutch Life in Town and Country by P. M. Hough, 1902.
A remnant of an old pagan custom of welcoming the summer is still to be seen in many country places. On the Saturday before Whitsunday, very early in the morning, a party of children may be seen setting out towards the woods to gather green boughs. After dipping these in water they return home in triumph and place them before the doors of those who were not “up with the lark” in such a manner that when these long sleepers open them, the wet green boughs will come tumbling down upon their heads.
Very often, too, the children pursue the late risers, and beat them with the branches, jeering at them the while, and singing about the laziness of the sluggard. These old songs have undergone very many variations, and nowadays one cannot say which is the correct and original form.
They have, in fact, been hopelessly mixed up with other songs, and in no two provinces do we find exactly the same versions. The luilakfeest, of which I have just spoken, goes by the name of Dauwtrappen ("treading the dew")in some parts of the country, but the observance of it is the same wherever the custom obtains.
Eiertikken at Easter must also not be overlooked. For a whole week before Easter the peasant children go round from house to house begging for eggs, and carrying a wreath of green leaves stuck on a long stick. This stick and wreath they call their Palm Paschen which really means Palm Sunday, and may have been so called because they make the wreath on that day.
Palm Paschen—Begging For Eggs. Image from text, by P. M. Hough.
Down the village streets they go, singing all the while and waving the wreath above their heads:
"Palm, Palm Paschen,
Hei koeerei.
Weldra is net Paschen,
Dan hebben wy een ei.
Ben ei—twee ei,
Het derde is net Paschei."
[" Palm, Palm Sunday,
Hei koeerei.
Soon it will be Easter,
And we shall have an egg.
One egg—two eggs,
The third egg is the Easter egg."]
They knock at every farmhouse, and are very seldom sent away empty-handed. When they have collected enough eggs to suit their purpose—generally three or four apiece—they boil them hard and stain them with two different colours, either brown with coffee or red with beet-root juice, and then on Easter Day they all repair to the meadows carrying their eggs with them, and the eiertikken begins. The children sit down on the grass and each child knocks one of his eggs against that of another in such a way that only one of the shells breaks. The child whose egg does not break wins, and becomes the possessor of the broken egg.
The strangest of all these begging-customs, however, is the one in vogue between Christmas and Twelfth Night. Then the children go out in couples, each boy carrying an earthenware pot, over which a bladder is stretched, with a piece of stick tied in the middle. When this stick is twirled about, a not very melodious grumbling sound proceeds from the contrivance, which is known by the name of rommelpot. By going about in this manner the children are able to collect some few pence to buy bread—or gin—for their fathers. When they stop before anyone's house, they drawl out: "Give me a cent, and I will pass on, for I have no money to buy bread." The origin both of the custom and song is shrouded in mystery.
Hough, P. M. Dutch Life in Town and Country. G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902.
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