As Easter appraoches, people in Sweden ebulliently partake in the buying of sprigs of (birch) twigs decked with coloured feathers, known here as påskris.

Apparently, in days of yore, folk would whip themselves with such a device (minus the feathers, which only appeared in the 1930’s) on Shrove Tuesday or Good Friday (wisely, the Swedes call this day Long Friday, which it undoubdtedly was.) Such flagellation was carried out as a reminder of Jesus’ suffering.

This all now seems like a load of nonsense, and instead we (I being Swedish in this context) decorate our homes with brightly coloured pieces of trees.

This must be something unique to Scandinavia, and I simply cannot imagine paskris being exported to any other country today. And yet I wish it would, for I should like nothing more than to hear the mellifluous chanting in marketplaces around Britain, “Twigs with feathers on, get yer lovely twigs with feathers on ‘ere.”

Incidently, a bunch of påskris like the one pictured here would set you back about £1.50.
Double-incidently, Paschal is the adjectival form of Easter, pask in Swedish. These words come from the Hebrew, Pasch, which means passover. So there you go.