Sussex Exclusive Magazine. Issue 7

Easter
Skipping, hunting and not eating your Hot Cross
Buns until next year: it’s a Sussex Easter
Easter is early this year but, as always, it provides a welcome beacon of warmer
weather at the end of the long winter months. So as we slowly come out of
hibernation, here are some curious Easter facts and our top suggestions for
Easter experiences.
Easter facts and folklore
Although Easter is a Christian holiday,
the word “Easter” is derived from the
word “Ēastre,” the name of a pagan
goddess of spring and fertility, and it was
a pagan festival celebrating the arrival of
spring. This may explain the symbolism
behind Easter eggs.
In our house, back in the 1970s, we
would pin prick both ends of a chicken
egg and carefully drain out the contents,
and then we would paint the eggs in
intricate designs and finish them with a
varnish.
Don’t eat that lucky bun
Most people know that the cross on a
Hot Cross Bun symbolises the cross on
which Jesus was crucified but did you
know that Hot Cross Buns used to only
be baked on Good Friday? This was
supposed to make them lucky, stop them
going mouldy and give them healing
properties. In Sussex, you might save a
bun for a whole year, hanging it in the
St Andrew's Church,
Alfriston
Good Friday
and playing
a game of
“Kiss-In-The-
Ring” (I’ll leave
that to your
imagination).
kitchen to protect your home, or the
fishermen might have carried one as
protection against drowning.
Easter skipping
Skipping was (and still is in some places)
a longstanding Sussex Easter tradition.
It used to be particularly popular in
Brighton, Lewes and Seaford on Good
Friday. There is some suggestion that
skipping is connected to the Bronze Age
burial mounds of the South Downs and
burial rituals, but it’s also associated with
fishermen and used to take place at the
Brighton Fish Market right up to 1939.
Easter skipping now seems to be enjoying
a bit of a revival with various Morris sides
incorporating it in their routine, and one
place you can still find skipping going
strong is in Alciston in East Sussex.
Other Easter traditions
Other Sussex Easter activities used
to include playing marbles on Good
Friday and playing a game of “Kiss-
In-The-Ring” (I’ll leave that to your
imagination). Much older (but not
necessarily Sussex) traditions included
giving bread and money to the poor
on Maundy Thursday and placing
consecrated bread in an Easter Sepulchre
(tomb). You can see an example of an
Easter Sepulchre in St Andrew’s Church
at Alfriston.
Meanwhile, a much newer Good Friday
tradition now unfolds in Hastings, where
there is a procession through the streets
re-enacting the story of Good Friday.
Later in the day, there’s an Easter Marbles
Championship held in the town! A day
of contrasts you could say.
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