A time of light and new birth

It is known that Easter was celebrated in AD 200, while Christmas appeared during the fourth century, and the reason for Easter's huge significance within the Christian faith was that it marked Christ's Resurrection.

For that reason it was considered far more important than Christmas, the miracle of the Resurrection being the centre-piece of the Christian faith.

The early Christians also decided that Easter should be celebrated on a Sunday, partly because Sunday was the day of the Resurrection, but also because the Jews celebrated their Sabbath on a Saturday.

In this way, the new Christian faith would be distanced from the Jewish celebrations of the time, and there followed a complicated mathematical calculation to determine the continuing date of Easter.

For a time, Easter was celebrated on different dates in various countries, but the Pope felt it should occur on the same date throughout the Catholic church.

At the Council of Nicea in AD 325, therefore, 318 bishops decided that Easter Sunday should be the Sunday following the first full (Paschal) moon after the spring equinox.

This is also the day we enjoy maximum light because there are 12 hours of daylight followed by 12 hours of full moonlight.

It is in complete contrast with Christmas, which is perilously close to the shortest day and longest night.

In establishing the method for calculating the date of Easter Sunday, it followed that other important Christian feasts were linked to it and were therefore moveable, such as Pentecost and Ascension Day. As time passed, so the Church matured and the importance and symbolism of Easter increased.

Learned teachers spoke of heavenly light, new birth and all those things we associate with the season of spring and nature's revival.

Easter Sunday was, and still is, a time for renewal and a time for revival of one's flagging Christian beliefs.

For all Easter's association with the birth and continuation of Christianity, it is in fact based on a pagan festival which is named after the Scandinavian goddess, Eostre or Eastre, the goddess of dawn.

The name is linked to the east, which is the area in which the sun rises, and in the absence of a firm date for Christ's Resurrection the early Church decided to make good use of the pagan festivals.

It was far easier for the new converts to Christianity to adapt to the new faith if they had some links with the old, consequently it is not surprising that many of our Easter customs have pagan origins.

One example is the Easter egg. Down the ages and in almost every civilisation, the egg has symbolised fertility and new life - it is known that the ancient Romans, Gauls, Chinese, Egyptians and Persians all used eggs during their spring festivals.

They were used to celebrate the renewal of life after the darkness of winter, and the early Church recognised the value of using the egg to symbolise the Resurrection of Christ.

It was a neat and highly illustrative means of ensuring a smooth transition from paganism to Christianity.

The formal introduction of the egg into church services probably began with Pope Paul V. He introduced them in the Easter Sunday mass and they were dyed red to symbolise the blood shed by Christ at the Crucifixion.

A prayer approved by Paul V has definite links with the Resurrection. It reads: "Bless, O Lord, we beseech Thee, this Thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance to Thy faithful servants, eating in thankfulness to Thee, on account of the Resurrection of Our Lord."

Easter eggs now come in many forms, both real and artificial, and in many colours too. Furthermore, they have received various names, sometimes being known as pasch eggs, which in turn has been corrupted into pace eggs.

Pace egg ceremonies were once common in this country, but the name comes from the old French "pasche", which in turn was derived from the Hebrew "pesakh", meaning Passover.

Many of those ceremonies consisted of little more than rolling hard-boiled dyed eggs down sloping hillsides until the shells broke, whereupon they were eaten, although in some parts of the country there were pace egging plays, with the actors dressed in animal skins and sometimes sporting black faces.

For many of us, however, the religious aspects of Easter mean very little, for it is nothing more than the first major holiday weekend of the year.

That means it is time to dress for the great outdoors and rush into the countryside or to the coast for that wonderful dose of fresh spring air.

In doing that so regularly, we have established our own Easter customs along with chocolate eggs and with little or no thought as to how it all started.

A walk along the coastal path of the Cleveland Way between Ravenscar and Robin Hood's Bay was rewarded by the presence of some remarkably tame yellowhammers.

We encountered several in high bushes along our route, almost invariably singing their famous "little bit of bread and no cheese" song and they did not fly off at our approach.

I think they have become accustomed to the presence of humans along that picturesque stretch of the coastline, for they regard passing people with little more than casual curiosity.

Looking rather like a type of finch, the yellowhammer is a member of the bunting tribe, and its distinctive yellow plumage is a ready means of identification, although the female is slightly more dull than her mate.

The male, however, has a bright yellow head and breast with just a hint of chestnut brown at each side of his chest.

His upper parts are chestnut with streaks of black, and along each side of his tail there are white feathers which become prominent in flight.

I like the alternative name for these birds, which is scribble lark. This arises from the design on their eggs. The shells are a whitish or pale pink colour, but they are covered with brown or purplish-brown squiggles, just as if a child had been attempting to write on them with a soft pen.

The female could be laying her eggs around this time, although this period can stretch as late as August, and she will produce anywhere between two and five.

She lays them in a nest which she builds herself and which is on the ground, albeit well concealed in a bank side or among dense undergrowth, or even tucked away beneath a hedge.

Quite surprisingly, the yellowhammer favours areas with few trees, much preferring wide open spaces.

For this reason, they are often associated with our moors and large areas of grassland, such as fields and commons.

I can recall, as a child, walking on the moors near my home to the sound of yellowhammers and skylarks.

Skylarks still sing along the course of my morning walk, but I have never seen or heard a yellowhammer there for years. That made our experiences along the coast all the more enjoyable.

Following earlier notes in which I mentioned horse brasses (D&S, April 11), I am often asked about the reasons why horses wore such splendid brass ornaments upon their harness.

Nowadays, these brasses, or cheap copies of them, adorn many of our public houses and private homes and their original purpose has been forgotten.

That purpose, not all that long ago, was to ward off the evil eye and protect the horse against witchcraft. Now, we might describe them as good luck symbols, but the designs of the brasses comprised a range of symbolic shapes.

They included wheels, swastikas, hearts, lotus-flowers, hands, the sun with its rays, crescent moons or winged globes, and I have some which are shaped like a heart, a horseshoe and a shamrock.

A full set of brasses might amount to 20 pieces and if these were considered too heavy for a horse to carry during its daily toil, a full complement was usually displayed only during special occasions, such as a show day or gala.

They were considered a very important part of the horse's adornment and wonderful sets were passed from father to son as heirlooms.

Sadly, many sets were broken into individual items and sold in shops, which is how I obtained mine.