Pysanky

One of the things I do for a living (if you can call something I've rarely been paid to do "for a living") is making crafts: jewelry, dolls, and pysanky at the moment.

I learned this at Pennsic around a dozen years ago, and I've made batches of them periodically ever since. I've only taught my class in it twice, but there are others in my area who know more than I do and actually have the heritage and/or persona to match, so I tend to defer to them at Academies.

Here are my class notes, now with pictures and a bibliography!

Pysanky

Pysanky are dyed eggs, made with a wax resist method of dyeing similar to batik. The word Pysanka (singular) is from the Ukrainian “pysaty” meaning, “to write”. Their most famous connection is with Ukraine.

Other cultures which use the same or similar methods of egg-dyeing:

Poles

Belarusians

Bulgarians

Croats

Czechs

Lithuanians

Romanians

Slovaks

Slovenes

Serbs

Latvians

Hungarians

There are many different ways to decorate eggs in these traditions. The most common is boiling the eggs with vegetable dyes such as onion skins to make them a single color. These can be eaten, because the dye is food-safe. In the Ukraine, these are called Krashanky.

Another method is etching or scratching colored eggs—either eggs dyed a single color, or eggs which are naturally not white (brown chicken eggs, blue duck eggs) to reveal the white surface beneath (Drapanki/Travlenky).

In Latvia, they tie leaves and flowers onto the surface of eggs before dyeing to act as a resist (Lieldienu Olas).

Pysanky, and all other decorated eggs except those boiled in vegetable dye are meant as decoration only, and not to be eaten. Traditionally, they are not blown out, but left to dry out slowly. The yolk of the egg will become hard and dry and rattle around inside.

Modernly, many pysanky-artists will blow out their eggs after removing the wax, which makes them less likely to explode in heat.

It has been suggested that grocery-store eggs have thinner shells due to the feed and conditions of the chickens producing them, and therefore are more likely to shatter or explode. Thicker farm eggshells are sturdier and more able to withstand the drying process. If you choose to dry your eggs, make sure you store them where they are out of the heat, and have airflow around them.

History:

Pysanky are an ancient tradition, originally pre-Christian. Slavic cultures worshipped a sun god called Dažbog. In the spring, people would color eggs and use them for protection and blessing. The eggs represented both birds, which were sacred to Dažbog, and rebirth, which was very important to all cultures.

When Christianity came to the Slavic tribes around the end of the tenth century, the egg dyeing went from honoring Dažbog to honoring Christ.

Several legends surround Pysanky. One is that an evil serpent chained to a cliff will destroy the world if there aren’t enough pysanky made each year. The more pysanky, the tighter the chains.

Another is that Mary brought eggs in her apron when she went to plead for Jesus’ life from Pontius Pilate, and when she knelt down, her tears colored them, and they rolled off into the world.

Color Symbolism:

YELLOW

youth, light, happiness

ORANGE

Strength and power

GREEN

Renewal, fertility, triumph of life over death

RED

Passion, love, blood.

BLACK

Remembrance, eternity, death, protection from evil.

BROWN

earth.

BLUE

Air/sky

WHITE

purity, birth

PURPLE

faith, patience

Traditional Dye Sources:
Yellow: wild apple bark, onion, buckwheat husk, campion, dog’s fennel

Red: madder, black hollyhock, birch tree leaves, moss, sandalwood, cochineal, deerhorn

Dark Green/Violet: elderberries, sunflower seeds

reddish purple: red onion skins, beets

Black: Walnuts, alder bark, sulphate of iron, black maple twigs, periwinkles, sunflower husks

Sources of Vegetable Dyes for Krashanky:

Brown: onion peel

Black: oak or alder bark, walnut shells

Gold: apple bark, marigolds

Purple: mallow petals

Green: rye shoots, periwinkle leaves

Pink: beets

Uses for Pysanky:

Given to the priest, children, your sweetheart, and your family members. Light pysanka are for younger people, dark for older people, predominantly red ones for children

Put on graves of family members: black and white designs

Kept in the house to protect it from fire; put in the mangers of the animals to keep them safe and in milk, put under the beehives for a good harvest, saved to be brought out to the pasture with each grazing animal in the spring, placed in hen’s nests to encourage laying.

Traditionally, the eggs dyed have to be fertilized (the majority of commercially available eggs are not fertilized, because that would end up with a baby chick inside and most modern people are a bit freaked out by that).

Designs and Symbolism:

Forty Triangles (actually 48): 40 days of lent, 40 martyrs, 40 days in the desert, 40 tasks of married couples

Diamonds= knowledge

Tripods= birth, life and death; man, woman and child.

Dots= stars, tears of Mary

Churches, sometimes with a sieve inside to symbolize the church separating good and evil.

Tree of life

Pussy Willows= same as palms on palm Sunday

Garlands= in three circles to represent birth, marriage, and life.

Roosters= manliness, dawn, good fortune

Spiders/spiderwebs= perseverance, patience, art

Butterfly= journey of soul to heaven

Bee= hard work, all good insects

Snake= had (a harmless grey snake), a snake with mystical powers, protects all the people in a house (kind of like a gnome or a tomten…good families all have hads)

Sun=Protection. Closed circle with or without rays, spiral or flower, swastika with arms pointing left.

Ladders=prosperity

Pine Needles=health, eternal youth

Crosses=Christ, or the four directions

Wheat=good health, good harvest

The Sun and Stars=life, fortune, growth.

Deer, Horses, and/or Rams=strength, masculinity

Fish=Christianity

Curls=protection

Roses/Eight Sided Star=love

 Poppies= beauty.

Triangles=trinities: air, fire and water; father, son, and holy spirit; mother, father, child...

The Saw=also known as Wolves' teeth, protection

Birds=fertility, connection to the spirit world. Never shown flying.

Nets=fishers of men

Ribbons=eternity, water

Bibliography

Luciow, Johanna. Eggs Beautiful: How to Make Ukrainian Easter Eggs. 1975 Minnesota

Perchyshyn, Natalie and Luba, Ann Kmit, and Loretta Luciow. Ukrainian Design Book 1. 1999, Ukrainian Gift Shop, Inc.

Pollak, Jane. Decorating Eggs: Exquisite Designs With Wax and Dye. 1998, Sterling Publishing, NY.

Voropay, Oleksa. The Folk Customs of Our People. Translated by Luba Petrusha. 1958, Voropai.

www.pysanky.info, Luba Petrusha.

www.learnpysanky.com, Ann Morash.