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EASTER

Easter in Sweden: when the witches come out to play

Brightly coloured feathers in blues, reds, yellows and glaring pinks tied to long willowy twigs sold beside daffodil buds tip off the arrival of the Easter season in Sweden.

Easter in Sweden: when the witches come out to play

The local supermarkets in their weekly adverts also exploit the food associations of chicks, lamb, påskmust, eggs, sweets and the obligatory “påskkäring” or Easter witch to draw in customers gearing up for the upcoming gluttony of Påskafton.

Easter celebrations and traditions for the secular Swede are nearly as sacred as Christmas to the Swedish culture. Even devout atheists pay respect to the long-standing traditional norms that the holiday dictates in Sweden. Easter is a big deal to the entire country.

Religious Easter isn’t completely removed from the celebrations of the modern Swede. Swedes are traditionalists after all.

There will always be the group of churchgoers on Easter Sunday. Most likely they are the same gang who went to church for julotta Christmas morning. However, Easter today, has little to do with Christian beliefs for the majority of Swedes.

Children dressed as witches give a clear indication that Swedish Påsk origins predate Christianity. Folklore alleges that witches flew off on broomsticks to dance with the devil at Blåkulla.

In Sweden, this tale ties in with Easter. And so on skärtorsdag, Maundy Thursday, modern Swedish children dress up as påskkärringar (Easter hags) paint their faces, carry a broom and knock on neighbor’s doors for treats, much like American children do at Halloween.

Children also contribute to the tradition of Easter worldwide. What would Easter be without beautifully painted and adorned Easter eggs? Swedes just revere their Easter eggs –the decorative and the edible versions.

Semlor are still on sale despite the Lenten fast, and anticipation of the big day grows in the week beginning with Palm Sunday. In conservative communities there is an air of solemnity.

It would be taboo to get married or baptize a child during this week. And many die hard traditionalists still scowl at the modern disregard of a sober Good Friday and snort at the mention of potential merriment that evening.

Only in recent years are cinemas allowed to be open. Good Friday is more appropriately named in Swedish Långfredag – Long Friday, the most unhappening day of the calendar. Fun not allowed.

However, once the mourning of the crucifixion of Christ is over, the proverbial good times roll.

Saturday morning resembles a resurrection of sorts.

Spring is in the air, merriment is on the menu. The family will sit down to an ample feast in the afternoon on Påskafton, or the Eve of Easter. Eggs and lamb are the quintessential Easter fare that very nearly connote Påsk all by themselves. They represent the fertility of the spring and the rebirth of the year after the long winter.

Bonfires are lit in some regions of Sweden in the late afternoon.

Some say they are to scare off the evil influences of the Easter hags and their journey to Blåkulla. Others take the opportunity to clear gardens for the coming spring. For some regions, including the Stockholm area, the bonfires must wait until Valborgsmässafton or Walpurgis Night at the end of April to banish the remnants of winter.

Elizabeth Dacey-Fondelius

 

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TRAVEL NEWS

Traffic jams and sold-out trains: the latest on Easter travel in Sweden

Easter is probably the busiest time of the year for travel within Sweden. Here's the latest on how to travel safely and where you might face delayed trains or ugly traffic jams.

Traffic jams and sold-out trains: the latest on Easter travel in Sweden

Travelling by rail

If you haven’t already booked your ticket, you may find it difficult to get a seat on some popular routes. 

“Some routes are already fully booked. This is particularly the case between the major cities,” Anders Edgren, a press officer for the national train company SJ, told state broadcaster SVT.

A screenshot of SJ’s booking site for Good Friday shows most morning trains between Malmö and Stockholm are already sold out.
 
Edgren said on Thursday morning that there were still a few seats left between Stockholm and Gothenburg and Stockholm and Sundsvall but that they were selling out fast. 
 
 
“What we’re trying to do is to double-up trains, which is to stick together two trains, and if we manage to do that we might be able to release some more tickets.” 

Sweden’s national rail company SJ often schedules engineering work for national holidays, as fewer people are travelling to work, and this easter there will be engineering work at around 20 sites across the country, meaning more than 1,000 trains will be partly or totally replaced with buses during the Easter break. 

The worst areas are on the routes between Gothenburg and Malmö, between Västerås and Stockholm, and between Karlstad and Växjö. Work on the new Västkustbanan will mean replacement buses between Helsingborg and Gothenburg throughout the Easter holidays. 

SJ has made a map showing all the routes where you can expect interruptions: 

Traffic interruptions over Easter: 

Karlstad C to Kristinehamn: 10pm April 14th to 5am April 19th 

Gothenburg going north and south: 10.35pm April 14th to 2pm April 18th

Varberg to Heberg: 2pm April 14th to 2pm April 19th 14

Ängelholm Helsingborg: 12am April 4th to April 25th 4.15am 

Frövi to Kumla: 10pm April 14th to 5am April 19th 

Skymossen to Motala: 12am April 14th to 5am April 19th

Stockholm Central platforms 3 to 7: 10pm April 14th to 10pm April 21st 

Huvudsta – Barkarby: 1.10am April 14th to 4.30am April 19th 

Travelling by car 

In its guide to travelling by car over Easter, the Swedish Transport Agency warns that weather conditions at this time of year can vary enormously as you drive north.  You may find, for instance, that you need winter snow tyres by the time you reach your destination, even seemed almost summery when you set out. You should also make sure you have clothing for all seasons. 

Here is the agency’s maps of roads which it expects to see heavy Easter traffic. 

A map showing which roads are expected to be busy over the Easter period. Photo: Swedish Transport Agency
These include: 

The E22 between Kalmar and Norrköping, the E4 between Norrköping and Stockholm, and then from Stockholm all the way up to Sundsvall.  The roads leading towards the ski areas around Sälen and Östersund also tend to get crowded. None of the roads in Skåne are expected to see heavy traffic. 

The Swedish Transport Agency has imposed a ban on overtaking on the E4 between Gävle och Tönnebro, on the 14th and 14th of April for travel in a northerly direction, and on the 17th and 18th of April travelling south. 

The agency also recommends choosing roads with central reservations and speed cameras, as these are safer, even if this might mean a slower journey. Here is the agency’s map of roads with central reservations.

Flights

If you’re coming to Sweden by air, you should be aware that companies have been cancelling a high number of flights in recent days, because many of their staff have Covid.

EasyJet and British Airways cancelled more than 80 scheduled flights on Thursday, blaming staff sickness. 

Airports

If your flight is running as scheduled, be aware of issues at several UK airports.

Airports including Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham have been hit by disruption because of staff shortages caused by Covid, affecting everything from airport security to luggage handlers. Passengers risked missing their flights because of lengthy delays, according to reports in the UK press. 

Passport queues at Heathrow Terminal 2, from where SAS flies to Stockholm, were ‘stretching to 90 minutes’ on Maundy Thursday, The Independent reported. 

Passengers have been advised to make sure they are at the airport as early as possible to allow for delays, and unions have warned that the disruption could last for some time.

In the case of Manchester, the advice last week was to arrive three hours early.

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