21 April: Easter Eggs

It's Easter Sunday, and that means Easter eggs! Here are ten facts to enjoy while you tuck in.

1. Eggs connected with spring festivals pre-date Christianity. Egyptians, Persians, Gauls, Greeks and Romans would give Eggs in the spring as a symbol of new life and fertility.
2. Early Christians adopted the practice because eggs could be seen as a symbol of the Resurrection and the transformation of death into life. They would stain their eggs Red to represent the Blood of Christ. There is a legend which says that Mary Magdalene brought cooked eggs to share with the other women at the tomb of Jesus, and when she saw Him risen, the eggs turned red. A hollow egg could represent an empty tomb.
3. Eggs may also have become associated with Easter because it was forbidden to eat them during Lent. After the pancake feast of Shrove Tuesday to use up all the eggs, the hens wouldn't know it was Lent and would carry on laying. An egg feast at the end of Lent was a tradition in many parts of Europe. Eggs would have to be hard boiled to preserve them until it was okay to eat them again.
4. The first Chocolate Easter eggs were produced in 1873 by Fry's.
5. The ‘Crocodile’ pattern you see on chocolate eggs originated in Germany and was originally designed to cover up any minor imperfections in the chocolate.
6. In the UK, 80 million Easter eggs make up 10% of the country's annual spending on chocolate. Each child receives 8.8 Easter eggs per year which doubles their calorie intake during Easter week.
7. Decoration of Easter eggs dates back to medieval times when eggs would be boiled with Onions to dye them a golden colour. Different dyes and different colours became popular as time went on. Egg designs became quite intricate, especially in Ukraine where they even have a special word for decorating Easter eggs - Pysanka, from the Ukranian word for "to write" or "to inscribe". Beeswax is used to create the traditional designs.
8. Royalty would take the idea of decorated eggs to a new level since money was no object. In 1290, Edward I spent the then princely sum of eighteen pennies for four hundred and fifty eggs to be covered in gold-leaf for Easter gifts. Even more expensive and elaborate were the Easter eggs given by Russian Tsar Alexander III to his wife, Empress Marie. He started a custom in 1885 by ordering an Easter gift from Peter Carl Faberge. The gold and white enamel egg opened to reveal a smaller gold egg, which also opened to display a golden chicken and a jewelled replica of the Imperial Crown. They were so impressed that they ordered one every year, and later, Alexander's son continued the tradition. Faberge Eggs can sell for as much as £9 million.
9. Games involving Easter eggs are popular around the world. The Easter egg hunt is just one of many traditions which also include rolling eggs down a hill, attempting to dance around eggs left on the floor without damaging any, or throwing them. Medieval priests would throw an egg to a choirboy and the choir would pass the egg amongst themselves. Whoever was holding it when the clock struck noon was deemed the winner. "Egg tapping", "egg dumping", or "egg jarping" was a tradition in the north of England where players would each have a boiled egg and would hit another player's egg with it, until there was just one intact egg left.
10. Easter egg is also a term used in media, in particular computer software, to mean a hidden joke or message secreted away in the programme, which can be accessed by undocumented actions. The name came about because users might go looking for them, as in an Easter egg hunt. The first one appeared in 1979 in the Atari video game Adventure. At the time, Atari did not include programmers' names in the game credits, fearing that their best employees night be stolen by competitors. A programmer called Warren Robinett disagreed with the policy and secretly inserted the message "Created by Warren Robinett" which would appear if a player moved their avatar over a "Gray Dot" during a certain part of the game. Eventually, a player ratted on him and told Atari about the message, but Robinett had left the company by then anyway. At first, Atari wanted to re-proramme the game and re-release it, until they realised how much such an exercise would cost. Director of Software Development Steve Wright suggested not only leaving it in, but creating more, describing them as Easter eggs, for consumers to find.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two