Curious Easter Traditions in Finland

If you find yourself working in Finland this Easter, you might get some little witches knocking on your door the Sunday before Easter. And no, they did not get confused and thought its Halloween ;) There is a Finnish tradition in which Finnish kids do trick or treating during Easter.

On Palm Sunday, kids dress up as witches and go house to house offering to bless people’s homes, wishing luck and health to people by ‘expelling’ bad spirits. The ‘witches’ traditionally recite a rhyme wishing the residents health for the following year and exchange decorated pussy-willow branches for Easter candy. This is called ‘virvonta’, which is the act of refreshment or wishing.

The tradition has both pagan and Christian origin. The Nordic spring traditions focused on dispelling bad spirits with the aim to get a good harvest season and in the Christian traditions it honours ritual of the palms, celebrated by the blessing and distribution of palm branches (or the branches of other, native trees), representing the palm branches that the crowd scattered before Christ as he rode into Jerusalem.

A fun tradition that might get foreigners confused because of its similarity to Halloween, at the wrong time of the year…

Photo credit- https://www.abrunetteinfinland.com/