ABOUT WHITSUN - AND WHAT IS LINKED TO IT
MAY
30:
Today
I want to write about WHITSUN. The
holiday which in the Christian church is celebrated 50 days after Easter. The name comes from PENTECOST being a day
for baptisms, when participants would dress in white. The name might also come from the Anglo-Saxon work WIT, meaning
understanding, to celebrate the disciples filled with the wisdom of the Holy
Spirit.
What
the Christian legend says is that the Holy Spirit came to see the disciples of
Jesus on Day 50 after his resurrection at Easter. It came to teach them how to
speak and understand all languages. Very
practical also at that time. And the
name Pentecost comes directly from the Greek word Pentecoste, which means 50.
That
is why Whitsun is called Pentecôte in French, Pfingsten in German, Pentecoste
in Italian, Pentecostés in Spanish, Pinksteren
in Dutch, Pentikosti in Greek and Pinse in Danish.
There
are many traditions linked to Whitsun. One is that you celebrate that now you go from
winter to summer. You dress in white and
use a special hat made of straw – at least in the good old days.
And
you often leave home very early in the morning on Whitsun Sunday to go and see
the sunrise in a lovely place like a park, a forest, at the coast, or in a
small boat at sea. You bring with you a
nice basket with food and drinks, including coffee and aquavit. And as the sun rises you will see how it
almost dances on the sky. If it is a
cloudy morning you might still see the sun dancing. But it requires more aquavit 😊
In
my younger days in Denmark we always went to a special old half-timbered inn in
the forest – together with a lot of other happy people. This was a very special experience with
songs, breakfast, drinks – and more songs.
If
you want to get a feeling of the Whitsun sunrise at the Danish coast you may
have a look at this small video – with a morning song from the 19th
century about how the sun rises:
And
another sunrise song is this one by Norah Jones:
In my view they both give the nice atmosphere around
sunrise – also on Whitsun Sunday.
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