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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