The Swedish for Happy Easter is GLAD PÅSK!

In Sweden long ago, Easter was thought to be the witches' time. In west Sweden they lit Easter bonfires around which people would scream and yell to frighten away the witches. On Maundy Thursday the witches were said to fly off to "Blåkulla" and return again on the Saturday. Read more about the Easter traditions on the pages created by Luleå University.

Nowadays, children dress up as Easter witches on the Thursday before Easter and go from house to house and are given gifts or money - very similar to the North American Halloween.

After the long fast during Lent, eggs were eaten in celebrations, often taken from the nests of the spring birds and children would play games with eggs - such as rolling the egg. The older children in Skåne would assemble at a special celebration when they would dance, play games and eat eggs.

The easter egg has a long history. In graves from B.C. in Gotland, coloured clay eggs were found. They were painted in red and yellow as the eggs represented the sunrise and sunset - and even today the Swedes, like other Europeans, paint their eggs at Easter.

As a reminder of Christ's suffering, young people would thrash each other with silver birch twigs on the morning of Good Friday. These silver birch branches, decorated with brightly coloured feathers, were the originator of both the Lent and Easter decorated branches.

Semlor are special buns that used to be associated with Lent but now seems to be sold earlier and earlier in the year! They consists of a sweet bread bun when the middle is scooped out and filled with marzipan and whipped cream.

Otherwise, lamb is often eaten at Easter as well as many of the dishes eaten at the Christmas Smörgåsbord.