I interrupt my sequence of Hungarian-inspired reveries, as it’s Easter Monday and there are more pressing matters to discuss. Folks, it’s time to head over to eastern Europe for, as Wikipedia explains, on this day:
In Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic traditionally, early in the morning boys awake girls by pouring a bucket of water on their head and striking them about the legs with long thin twigs or switches made from willow, birch or decorated tree branches.
Whilst I’m familiar with the pomlázka tradition in the Czech Republic, and suspect it may hold true in Slovakia too, I confess that I’d not previously heard of it being common in the other two countries. (Can anyone corroborate that?). But, as they say, the more the merrier. Here’s a description from the Czech Daily Word:
In the Czech Republic the tradition goes that women have to be spanked on Easter Monday. Throughout the day men [usually in groups] visit their female relatives and friends and spank them with special whips.
Ouch? It gets worse…
These whips are hand-made from willow rods, the length ranges from 50 centimeters to two meters. There are ribbons at the end. There used to be a tradition that women would add their own ribbons so the whip would say how many women the particular man has already visited but this seems to fizzle out.
For the practical amongst you, YouTube features an online step-by-step guide to making one of the rods – in Czech, but pretty clear and rather fun. A search on YouTube for “pomlázka” also displays some entertaining videos of young ladies on the receiving end, but this is far too sweet and innocent a blog for me to link to those. So if you’re in one of the countries concerned, I hope you have a good day whipping or being whipped; if you’re not, perhaps it’s time to book flights for next year?!
I only ever heard about this from Czech girls. They said these whippings are totally harmless. Thanks for bringing it up. I had forgotten about it.
Still, I don’t think I’ll mention it to the boyfriend. (He might think Tuesday after Easter is good enough for a bucket of water.)
Svetlana – someone should surely direct your bf to this post! (Btw the email address you use when you post isn’t working??)
Sorry, I mistyped. This one should work.
I wish such a Easter spanking ritual would take place all around this globe of ours. For it sure would bring us a spanking good time.
For the sake of accuracy, other sources offer a different take of the water bucket thing. From Kaelah’s blog:
“In some regions, the women can get revenge in the afternoon or the following day when they can pour a bucket of cold water on any man.”
It’s true, here in Serbia, we get to make men wet the next day! 😉