Osterbrunnen - Easter Fountains
Decorating the fountains for Easter is a custom that is most popular in Franconia. The fountains are decorated with green garlands and painted eggs. The largest and most famous Easter fountains can be found in Bieberbach and Heiligenstadt. In recent years the custom has been spreading to other parts of Bavaria and other regions in Germany, for example Saxony, Palatine, Saarland. They have in the meantime also appeared in some villages around Karlsruhe, where my photos have been taken. This rather young custom was created in the late 19th/early 20th century. Do not believe anyone sho tries to tell you that it has pagan, pre-Christian Germanic or Slavic origins in a cult about springs. It does not. This misinterpretation is, just like the equally wrong interpretation of the carnival/Fastnacht as a pagan tradition, a child of the 1920s when Germanic mythology was so much en vogue....
