Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1890 — An Ancient Custom. [ARTICLE]

An Ancient Custom.

It is difficult to ascertain the precise origin of the graceful eastern so universal in France and Germany and more or less prevalent throughout the world of offering eggs at the festival of Easter. The Persians give each other eggs at the new year, the Prussians and the Finns at "the festival of Easter. Among the Homans the year Opened at Easter, as it did among the Franks under the Capets. Mutual presents were bestowed; and as the egg is the emblem of the beginning of all things, nothing better could be found, as an offering. The symbolic meaning is striking; eggs are the germs of fecundity and abundance, and we wish our friends all the blessings contained within the slender shell when we offer this gift, whose fragility represents that of happiness here below. The Bomans commenced their repast with an egg, hence the proverbial phrase, “Ab ovo usque ad mala,” and we still say, to express going back to the commencement—beginning— ab ovo.