Czech Easter traditions are up there with other quaint local customs that people grow up with, like cheese-rolling, Catholicism or head-shrinking, totally unaware that:
a) They only culture in the world who practice it, and
b) All other cultures in the world think that they’re absolutely out of their minds and walk off shaking their heads and asking why such things are allowed these days.

Let me take you back to my first experience of Czech Easter traditions, in 1991. For back then I was an innocent youth, untutored in the ways of the western Slavs and … well, not for the first time was I glad I’m not a woman!

I was having breakfast with my host-family when the doorbell rang. Radka, their daughter, looked at her mother, who smiled and looked at Radka’s brother, who grinned evilly at me and got up to answer the door. There seemed to be a certain atmosphere in the room, which as a young and intrepid explorer I was learning to interpret as ‘what’s our foreign friend going to make of this, then…?’

Like a good little foreign friend, I was trying to project an aura of open-minded curiosity when all hell was let loose and the kitchen was invaded by a Barbarian Horde. I recognised the British lads who were taking part in this supposedly cultural student exchange, as well as all of our male hosts. But the others were strangers and obviously part of a pack which had its prey in sight.

They descended on Radka, and I would like to brag about how I sprang to her defence, but that didn’t happen because I tripped over my jaw and on the way down I became a spectator at the kill. They produced intricately woven and platted whips made from willow and began to give her what can only be described as a light-hearted chain-whipping.

As I extricated myself from my disbelief, they bore her off like a trophy to the bathroom, whooping and hollering in a way the English had learned to associate with football hooligans and white slavers. When I arrived, at the back as usual, I saw the ringleaders running a bathful of cold water which Radka was trying to avoid being thrown into.  She ultimately failed and was soaked but I had the feeling that there was some tacit agreement going on to which I wasn’t privy.

Sure enough, I was swept up into this new world of craziness (an experience I was becoming used to as the days went by) as Radka’s mother rewarded those who had descended on her daughter with chocolate biscuits and large glasses of slivovice, that ubiquitous spirit brought out on all special occasions from birth to death.  I vaguely noticed Radka writing her name on the yellow ribbon attached to the ends of many of the whips as the spirit loosened my ties to reality.

Our first victim of the day….

Amazingly, this lady is still my friend!

This lady emigrated to Italy, where Czech Easter traditions are not celebrated.

This lady is English but was generously included in the celebrations by our new friends.

Both of these men went on to become teachers.

The man on the left is now a prosthetic limb salesman. Weird but true.