Tourism
Egg painting techniques in Transylvania
As a student, Anna László Ildikó has made it her goal to preserve and pass on folk culture and values, and she lives her everyday life by being true to her aspirations.
She learned to do handicrafts as a little girl because sewing, embroidery and knitting were everyday activities in her family. She had the chance to learn them from her grandmothers and mother. She also learned the basics of furniture painting with the help of her aunt, and then she continued her studies at the Géza Vámszer Folk School, where she perfected the knowledge she had acquired over the years in the fields of folk embroidery, furniture painting and costume sewing.
She learned to dance as a child from her father. She has been involved in folk dance and other cultural activities on a daily basis since the age of 15. The years of amateur dancing were followed by years of professional dancing, and then she and her husband, Szabolcs László Szolt, worked as dance teachers, and as a result of their work many young people became excellent professional dancers and folk dance instructors. They are currently contributing to the work of several dance groups as instructors, and are the leaders and dance instructors of the Forgórózsa Folk Dance Team in the Keresztúr region.
Fate brought her back to Székelykeresztúr at the beginning of February this year, as a native of the town, with 30 years of experience behind her, she helps the fathers and grandfathers of our town to gain insight into the mysterious, infinitely colourful and diverse, almost forgotten treasure of our traditional folk culture. Every week, she holds free workshops in the Community House next to the Székelykeresztúr Municipal Library, teaching folk dance, folk furniture painting and folk embroidery to young people and adults. These programmes are supported by the Mayor’s Office of Székelykeresztúr, the Government of Hungary and the National Institute of Culture, and are organised on a weekly basis. The classes are characterised by cheerfulness and creativity, with many smiling faces and curious looks...
We had the chance to meet Anna Ildiko László during an egg writing workshop, where she was happy to answer some of our questions, as we were facing a new and exciting topic. Entering the workshop venue, we encountered with a lot of unfamiliar faces, young and old were already at work, as there were many eggs to be written in everyone’s egg carton. Once we got to work, we were quickly introduced to the strange little tools that we could use to create, and fortunately we were not left without guidance, as our instructor kept an eye on us throughout the process and gave us lots of useful advice to help us write more beautiful eggs. After the workshop, we got detailed answers for our questions that were connected with the present activity.
What materials and tools did we use to write the eggs?
Today we worked with two types of wax, one is beeswax, which melts very easily and can be easily applied to the egg surface with the right tool, the other is candle wax. Our main tool is a very important one: the kesice , better known as the íróka. We have two types of kesice to create with today: the funnel and the smooth tube. The secret of the smooth tube is that it has a horsehair that leads the wax. As incredible as it may seem- the name is not misleading, as it comes from the horse’s tail hair. In the case of the funnel-shaped kesice, a funnel is formed from a bent copper plate, which will help to lead the molten wax while we are working on our so creations.
The secret is to get used to the melting point of the beeswax, as it is poured into the funnel-shaped casque in solid form and melted over a candle flame, if you are not careful it will run out of the funnel in no time. The other variant is candle wax. This is easier for me to work with because I dip the wax into the already melted wax, holding it over the flame several times doesn’t solidify as quickly, so I have more time to create.
What dyes are used to colour eggs?
The one on the table is not a traditional dye. It is the commercially available version, in red and green colors, the traditional egg dye in popular culture is the one made from onion peel , but various other vegetable dyes were also produced in the past. For example from the leaf of the carrot can be used to make a very nice orangish colour, the yellow onion’s peel can be used to make a yellow colour, red onion peel can be used to make a slightly reddish colour, or a mixed brownish colour. Green colour is obtained from animal bile, which is not used to dye eggs. To get a green dye similar to the one you see on the table here, they just had to use the major’s bile. They didn’t use this much colour for egg dyeing in the old days, this commercially available colour scale is very new, because people from this region used to dye with red instead. On the other hand, the green of the bile was also used to dye yarn and even furniture, but that’s another story…
The finished eggs on the table are very nice and shiny. What makes them so shiny?
Once the eggs have been written and painted, they are glazed with bacon fat or lard, the main thing is to use something fatty and natural.
Usually in Catholic villages the eggs were written on Easter Friday, but here in Székelykeresztúr and its surroundings, which is a Reformed and Unitarian region, the eggs were written in the afternoon of the first day of Easter. On the first day of Easter, they went to church to take communion which was followed by a festive lunch. When I was a child, my grandparents used to say that no one should go to their house on this afternoon, because everyone spends the day with their loved ones and this gave them the opportunity to write eggs at the peace of their home. They tried to use fresh eggs as it was important to keep the eggs edible, not decorative.
In folk symbolism there are male and female motifs . Are there any of these motifs on the eggs ?
This time we were introduced to the motifs of Gyímes, where different variations of the star and other motifs with a message ( but not specifically male or female ) are used, as it can be seen from here, this is the rake form or more specially the rake with the tile.
Other motifs that resemble to the human hand were also used like the bütüs, frog’s foot, goose’s foot and devil’s claw. Last but not least the motif of the tassel or pine branch, which are very important to mention are also typical in the area of Gyimes.
Let’s take a look at these eggs…
Here the tulip motif is rarely used, but star motifs appear very often. These are different leaf motifs, but if you put them together you can also see hearts. By the way, it was not appropriate to write a heart on their eggs, for this reason, they didn't give these ones to anyone...
Which leads me to the question of who gave the egg to whom?
The girls gave the boys the eggs during the watering. Emotional life was such a taboo subject that it was not painted on eggs. There were no heart-shaped emojis back then, but even if there had been, they wouldn't have been used. Girls were not supposed to express their emotions so openly. If the boy received an egg from the girl with a symbol of abundance or a guardian motif, he knew that if he needed protection, the girl would worry about him... that was enough to make the egg speak.
Do the patterns represent something?
Yes, patterns do have a specific meaning, so each pattern has its own meaning. It was very important for them who received the egg and for what purpose. In Gyimes, godmothers wrote eggs for their godchildren, and on them were symbols that protected them from evil. There are guarding and protective motifs, but there are also disguising motifs. In this workshop, we worked with Gyimes patterns. These also include tilapia and other star motifs. Usually, the egg is divided into a minimum of eight fields - the largest field you can write on - but there are also smaller ones, obviously, so there can be several parts, and on these fields the motifs are placed, always starting from the intersection of the main lines. The people of Gyimes believe that this is where God enters into life.
Each village has its own motives, right? Similar to the wooden gates?
Yes, like the Szekler gates, each region has its own motifs, but at the same time egg painting techniques can vary.
What other egg painting techniques are known in this region?
There are other egg dyeing techniques besides the one you have seen today, the kind that we used to do in the old days and still do today. For example, the technique of berzselés, where you put the a leaf on the egg and cover it with a piece of stocking, and then put the eggs in the dyeing bath. The painted eggs will retain the leaf and flower prints and it is also a quick and easy technique. Also, the tools used to make the eggs can vary, even in our country the eggs are not always written with a kesice, sometimes a ballpoint pen is used. There are also other techniques: for example, there is the scratching technique, where the egg is painted in one colour and then the paint is scratched off with a sharp knife.
I thought I saw a multicoloured egg on the table...
Yes, indeed, it is also used in Hungarian regions too. There is also a technique where several different levels are painted: red, white, green, black... with the same wax technique you can do it by applying a layer of wax on the surface that you want to leave white. If you want to paint a multicoloured egg, always start with the lighter colours. If you want to leave the egg yellow, you can paint it with the peel of the onion, then you can wax the part you want to leave yellow. Next comes the green, so after that you put it in the green paint, and what you want to leave green you have to wax again. You have to do the same with each colour until you get the last colour, for example black, on. When the last colour has been applied to the candle then all the applied wax should be melted off by the light of the candle. Just be careful with it, so your egg won't become smoky. This is the most complex one that the Hungarians make. Besides, another way to recognize Hungarian eggs is the dotting. The Slovaks and the Romanians use lines to fill in the motifs on the eggs, no dots are used.
If we had had more time, we could have learned more about this technique, but we were nevertheless happy to have had a glimpse into this segment of Transylvanian culture. The city of Székelykeresztúr does indeed a lot to culturally help the locals to immerse themselves in the beauty of their culture. It was a pleasure to participate in the workshop and we hope to use the knowledge that we acquired in the future.
