In Reply to: re: re: re: caption competition posted by Huh on August 24, 2009 at 16:43:37:

I take your point but I suggest the two are equally bad as far as our present friend is 'concerned'. In the case of Finland however - the two are not too far apart methinks - Easter witches are popular there:

I clip from a Finnish website regarding Easter in Finland;

"In western Finland, on the other hand, children of Lutheran families have a custom of dressing up like witches on Holy Saturday, when evil spirits and witches (called trulli in Finnish) were believed to roam around, doing all kinds of mischief. Large bonfires were burnt to dispel them, and this custom is still practised today.

Note: Easter witch is a popular character in the Nordic Easter tradition. It was believed in Finland and Sweden that witches, who were mainly old, malicious women envious of other people, flew around on brooms, hurting cattle and doing other mischief. They are represented as scarf-clad women riding a broom, accompanied by a black cat and a coffee pot.

Nowadays these two traditions are mixed quite heedlessly, and little witches whisking willow twigs can be seen throughout the country on Palm Sunday.