Admire this Easter Fountain!
By M.-L.
@MALUSE (69413)
Germany
April 15, 2017 2:38pm CST
It has become a tradition in German towns and villages to decorate fountains standing on market squares with coloured Easter eggs. Competitions are held. Committees are formed which go from site to site and in the end decide which fountain gets the first prize.
I'm showing you the current decorated fountain from a town in Bavaria. The 'crown' is 5,20m / 5,68 yds high. 100m / 109 yds of garlands are wound round the construction. More than 5000 coloured eggs are fastened at the garlands. Six big eggs stand round the base of the fountain. 200 eggs with handpainted pictures depicting motifs of the Bavarian history are stuck on them.
The custom of decorating the central fountain of a town stems from the early Middle Ages. It hasn't been celebrated continuously. After many interruptions the custom was revived about 20 years ago. Today the decorated fountains are meant as an appeal for clean living conditions, a healthy life, and peace.
What you see here is definitely a top specimen. But at this time of year you can also see many trees and bushes in private gardens decorated in a simpler way with coloured eggs and bows. Surprisingly, I haven't read yet that these pretty things are vandalised. May it remain like this.
13 people like this
16 responses
@sabtraversa (12997)
• Italy
15 Apr 17
They're beautiful, indeed. 
They could only be vandalised by some extreme nonreligious people, and I really hope it doesn't happen, with all the attacks occuring recently.
They could only be vandalised by some extreme nonreligious people, and I really hope it doesn't happen, with all the attacks occuring recently.1 person likes this
@sabtraversa (12997)
• Italy
15 Apr 17
@MALUSE Eggs and bunnies are heathen, but I spotted a cross on the crown and I thought of Christianity. Youths should be partying with chocolate eggs these days. 
@MALUSE (69413)
• Germany
15 Apr 17
@sabtraversa Not all fountains decorated for Easter have a cross on top. But this fountain is in a Bavarian town and Bavaria is predominantly Catholic. They have crosses and crucifixes everywhere.
1 person likes this
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
17 Apr 17
I have seen trees decorated with hundreds of easter eggs but I hadn't heard of the custom of decorating fountains in this manner. It seems that this has also been a tradition in other parts of Europe, too. I found a reference to decorated fountains in Franconia, for example.
The practice of decorating wells, springs and fountains is very ancient, I believe, and must stem originally from the worship of the gods and guardian spirits of water sources, though nearly all of the ceremonies I have heard of seem to have been 'revivals' dating only to the 19th and 20th Centuries, though based on memories of earlier customs.
In the Peak District (of England), especially, and also in other places in England, they construct wooden frames filled with clay into which are pressed flowers of many colours to make the most complex and inventive pictures. Most of these well-dressing customs seem to take place around Easter, though in some places they happen at other times in the summer.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Well dressing in Tissington, 2007 Well dressing (also once known as well flowering) is a summer custom practised in rural England in which wells, springs or other water sources are decorated
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
17 Apr 17
@MALUSE I don't believe that I had heard of 'Franconia' before but the site I found the information on said it was 'north of Nuremburg in a triangle between the cities of Bayreuth, Bamberg and Erlangen'. My geography of Germany is rather hazy but it seems that this is an area in Bavaria which you call Franken or Frankenland. Historically, it was settled by one of the Frankish tribes and has its own dialect ('frankisch' - with an umlaut over the 'a') and customs.
@MALUSE (69413)
• Germany
17 Apr 17
I hadn't seen 'dressed wells' before. They look pretty.
You've mentioned Franconia in your comment as if it were a country. But there is no country in Europe called Franconia, isn't there? It may be the part of Germany which is called Franken in German. It's the northern part of the Land Bavaria. The main city is Würzburg. A beautiful city which was nearly erased to zero one and a half months before the end of WW2.
. I hope no one who think of vandalizing it either.
@silvermist (19702)
• India
22 Apr 17
@MALUSE First time I am hearing about this decoration of fountains.It does look beautiful.
@Hate2Iron (15730)
• Canada
17 Apr 17
I would be so angry to find something like vandalized. Sometimes you have to wonder what this world is coming to. I like your tradition.
@JudyEv (326094)
• Rockingham, Australia
15 Apr 17
That is really lovely. Thanks for sharing the picture and the information. People put a huge amount of work into these things sometimes.
