Ugly Thursday, Eggs and Whips

What makes a great holiday? Religious references, bank and governmental closures are all nice things, but they do not make a great holiday. Extra money in a paycheck also helps, but it is not the key. A truly great holiday can mix all of these, overt sexual references and a national panty raid. In Japan, there are several interesting holidays. Some even might be excellent, but none are great. Japanese men by the hundreds ride down a hill on a wicker log in their underwear, during one of their excellent holidays. Certainly hundreds of naked Japanese men and their large grass phallus is not an academic try to be a great holiday. It lacks a magnitude that five million Czech men chasing women with their hand-woven whips has. The fact that they do it for the ladies’ hair bows; certainly sets a high standard.

Easter week, in Czech starts on Green Wednesday. Across the country all of the schools let the kids out. Traditionally, village men collect the branches and things they will need to build the noise makers and polaská. Polaská, the Czech Easter whips, are the way to start a good holiday. Polaská are made by the men of the village from several small limbs and vines woven together. The whips are usually up to 3 ft (1m) long. Like everything else, some men have bigger “whips” than others. Their description is more medieval sounding than the actually are, but they are far from harmless. Village men are not the only ones working, village women are busily collecting things to decorate eggs and make baskets.

Ugly Thursday, is the day the men help the boys weave their whips and the women help the girls make their baskets. On Good Friday, the boys walk through the villages at dusk offering to scare the bad spirits away by screaming, shaking their rattles and threatening them with their whips. If the boys do a good job, the family receiving their services gives them a treat or a coin. All day Friday the girls are still working on their baskets and eggs. Their eggs and baskets take a great deal of skill and time, and truly great eggs can not be rushed like the polaská.

Czech egg traditions are certainly something to be seen. Intricately cut eggshells died, painted or simply white are hand-made and displayed in houses and windows across the country. Women and girls decorate the countryside with colorful ribbons and eggs. In an intriguing display of equality, Czech girls do not just lie down and let the boys take the spotlight. The women and girls go their villages on Saturday, displaying the eggs and baskets. If she did a good job, then she gets a treat or a coin. In the smaller villages in Moravia, this is an important tradition to the girls and they put a great deal of effort into creating artistic and skillful decorations. In the bigger cities, it is not so common. Ribbons and eggs decorate the city, even if the idea of going from flat to flat seems particularly un-Czech.

What the Czechs do on Sunday seems kind of a mystery, but they probably go visit Babička and Dědiček, grandma and grandpa. The real proof for the “great” status of this celebration is on Monday. With so few national holidays during the year, they get as many together as they can. On Easter Monday, it is a good day to be a man. Conversely, it is bad to be a girl’s butt. Czech men and boys patrol town stalking the women. There are stories about how the polaska will chase the bad spirits out of the women.

A few playful swats usually scare the spirits away. Usually, it gets you a shot of Becherovka or slivka and the ribbon from their hair for your polasko. By mid-afternoon the whole situation degrades into roving bands of men and boys rounding up randy girls and women for a bit of playful S & M and lots of drunken laughs. If all of these traditions did not make it a great holiday, leave it to the Czech men to “raise the bar.” No real Czech man would ever leave his favorite girl with just scared spirits, it is just not right. The job must be finished properly; she needs to be doused to wash the last of the spirits from her. Any lake or fountain will do. The wetter she gets the more the spirits understand. They need to know who the boss is and that they are getting their walking papers until next year. By the end of the day, particularly successful village boys will have covered their polaská with hair bows. Some of the village girls have to buy extra bows, judging from some of the whips, whip sluts. We know they only wear their best bows on the days they know they will be “whipped.” How can a holiday with whips, eggs, grandpa’s slivka and mom’s řízek not be great?