Easter sprinkling in Hungary

Names and meanings

The custom has several Hungarian names. Locsolkodás and locsolás come from locsolni, to sprinkle, and öntözés, watering, is used as well. The second word hints at why: the girl is pictured as a flower coming into bud and the boy as the water it needs. Easter Monday itself is called Vízbevető Hétfő, Water Plunge Monday. In the same way that the day is tied to Easter, it is tied to spring, to the first warm weeks when gardens and fields begin to grow. The sprinkling is therefore both a game and a greeting of the season.

Older forms

Old accounts describe rougher versions. Young men would tip a bucket of cold water over a young woman, often at dawn while she was still in bed. Fifty years ago a girl dressed in her best clothes might be lifted and dropped into a water trough. This was a country way of showing interest, a kind of courtship, and it is no longer common. Where it survives it is mostly in villages and small towns, and among groups that work to keep old customs alive. Since the years between the wars, perfume has taken the place of water, though jokes with flower sprayers, soda siphons and garden hoses continue.

Poems and eggs

Before he sprinkles, a boy recites a locsolóvers, a short and usually funny verse. A whole genre has grown from these poems. Some are famous and well known by heart, others are made up on the spot. The verse often asks the girl to allow the sprinkling, or bargains for a kiss, and it may carry a playful threat. The return gift is an egg, dyed red and often decorated. Boys gamble with their eggs by rolling one against another to see whose shell breaks. A sprinkler could collect eight or nine eggs at a single house.

Food and drink

The morning began with food. Boys ate szalonna, cured pork fat, and scrambled eggs before setting out. At the houses they visited, plates of ham, aspic, kalach bread and wine were set out beside the eggs, and in the evening there was a ball. The reward for sprinkling could also be a glass of palinka, a strong fruit brandy. When eggs were cooked in the juices of the consecrated Easter ham they were called kókonya. Eggshells had a part too: a boy might leave them under the window of a girl who had displeased him.

Dress, trees and willow

New clothes mattered a great deal. People said a young woman or a boy would lose a whole year's will to work if no new boots came at Easter, and girls hoped for red or yellow ones. Godparents usually gave them, and a girl wore her pair only inside the church, walking there and back barefoot so the leather stayed clean. A boy might also raise a Hajnalfa, a dawn tree, in a girl's garden, hung with ribbons like a Christmas tree or a maypole, and eggs were sometimes hung there as a safeguard. Willow switches were used too, in a custom called vesszőzés or sibálás, which was thought to keep girls healthy.

How Easter sprinkling in Hungary is kept

On Easter Monday morning, boys and young men, sometimes in groups, walk from house to house in the neighbourhood where girls they know live. At each door the boy recites his short verse, then sprinkles the girl with water or perfume. She hands him a painted egg, and often a little food and wine as well. Older village custom added the dawn tree in the garden and, in some places, a switch of willow. By evening the day ends with a dance or a ball. The sprinklers keep count of the eggs they gather. In a few villages the young men still wear costumes, and in Galgamácsa they once danced in white masks.

When and where

Easter Monday, the day after Easter Sunday, is the day of the sprinkling. Because Easter follows the lunar calendar, the date moves each year and can fall in March or April. The Tuesday after Easter reverses it in some places: the girls douse the boys, and presents are exchanged that day too.

The custom belongs to Hungary and to Hungarian communities through the Carpathian Basin, and Hungarian Americans keep it in the United States. It is strongest in villages and small towns, where old customs are still maintained, and quieter in the cities. Related sprinkling days are kept in Poland, where the name is Śmigus-dyngus, and in Slovakia, where it is called oblievačka.

What Easter sprinkling in Hungary means

Water stands for growth and for the new season. The girl is likened to a flower opening, and the boy to the rain that helps it. For the young people of a village the day was a festival of love, a chance to show whom they liked. It also belonged to growing up: neighbours celebrated together, while the legény, the young unmarried men, went about as a group. The painted egg carries the same weight, a small gift of life and luck given freely in return.

Days Easter sprinkling in Hungary is marked

Questions people ask about Easter sprinkling in Hungary

See also

BusójárásA six-day winter carnival of carved wooden masks, folk music, and parades in MohácsMaypoleA tall wooden pole, garlanded and danced around, raised at May Day, Whitsun or MidsummerEaster egg treeA German springtime custom of dressing living trees and branches with blown eggsCandlemasA Christian feast of candle blessings marking the end of the Christmas season

Good reading and sources

• Easter sprinkling in Hungary on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-14.