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Without Words:

The Language of Signs and Symbols

The Egg

In marble walls as white as milk,
Lined with a skin as soft as silk;
Within a fountain crystal clear,
A golden apple doth appear,
No doors there are to this stronghold.
Yet thieves break in and steal the gold.
--Old English Riddle

As the spring equinox approaches, all of the creative forces of life and fertility are reborn, producing wonderful colors, newborn animals, and tender new plants. It is natural that cultures throughout the world would symbolize this brief season and its powers of regeneration with the same symbol--the egg.

The myths of cultures in Polynesia, India, Greece, Europe, the Americas, and Africa all have myths describing an original cosmic egg from which the universe was born. In most of these myths, the egg emerged from the waters of the first ocean or lake and then hatched out to create the heavens, earth, gods, and elements. Since the egg symbolizes so much, its role in world religion and culture is not limited to the relatively recent Easter observance.

The egg generally came to be associated with potential, life, fertility, immortality, the womb, and rebirth. This led to the egg's importance in various healing and fertility rites and to the burial of eggs with the dead. Nests of clay eggs have been found in Ice Age tombs in Sweden and Russia.

The egg, even in funeral rites, serves most often as a focus for celebrating life and renewal. Eggs dyed red to represent the womb were given as gifts at spring festivals in ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece, and Rome. In China, red eggs were given out as gifts to friends, neighbors, and family to announce and celebrate the birth of a child.

In northern Europe, eggs were rolled in the newly-sown soil to fertilize the fields. The Moon Hare, sacred animal of Eostre (Germanic goddess of dawn and the heavens), laid additional eggs which were then colored and hidden in the fields for children to find, continuing the fertility cycle of both crop and tribe. This aspect of celebrating spring's fertility remains popular today, except that children now search for eggs in the lawns of churches and at the homes of our heads of state (something that is rich with symbolism of its own).

There are, of course, Christian and Jewish rites of spring that also feature the egg. Jews eat a hard-boiled egg at the Passover meal of celebration to symbolize the continuing of the generations, sacrifice, and the victory of life over death. In Christianity, the egg became associated with Easter as a continuation of folk tradition, but was given its own special value as a symbol of resurrection. The egg also became a symbol of the Virgin Birth because of its simple shape, white color (the color of innocence), and fertility.

As we observe the coming of the spring, it is as though the great egg of the world has given its wealth of possibilities to all of us. As you color, design, hide and eat the eggs that are part of our traditions of spring, think of the words of the Roman who exclaimed, "Omne vivum ex ovo!" (All life comes from an egg!) and marvel at the strength, beauty, and perfection of this simple vessel of creation.

 

Sources may include:
Becker, Udo, ed. The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols. Continuum, NY 1994

Beiderman, Hans, trans. James Hulbert. The Dictionary of Symbolism: Cultural Icons and the Meanings Behind Them. Facts on File, NY 1992

Bruce-Mitford, Miranda., The Illustrated Book of Signs and Symbols: Thousands of Signs and Symbols from Around the World
. DK Publishing, NY 1996

Gibson, Claire. Goddess Symbols: Universal Signs of the Divine Female. Barnes & Noble, NY 1998

-----------------. Signs & Symbols: An Illustrated Guide to Their Meaning and Origins. Barnes & Noble, NY 1996

 

1997-2001 by Regina M. Raab

This page created: 21 February 2000
This page last updated: 18 February 2001

 

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