-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, March 11,1978
50
Oier gritzele
By SALLY BAIR
Staff Correspondent
EPHRSTA - Oier Gritzele is an
Eastertifhte folk tradition among Penn
sylvania Germans. For the uninitiated,
oier gritzele means egg scratching in the
Pennsylvania German dialect, and refers
to the art of scratching a design oirtp the
surface of a dyed egg. ’
Mrs. Raymond Althouse, 35 East Queen
Street, is currently teaching egg
scratching in a craft class at the Landis
Valley Farm Museum and she calls it
“ordinary, the sort of thing peasants would
do.”
Perhaps peasants would have carried on
the tradition, but the lovely eggs Evelyn
Althouse creates are far from ordinary.
They are truly works of art, and have been
recognized as such. Early forms of egg
scratching are displayed as “glyptic art”
by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Glyptic art is the process of carving or
engraving, especially on gems.
Interest in egg scratching, or egg car
ving as it is sometimes known, is reviving
along with renewed interest in other early
folk arts. If the enthusiasm and talent
displayed in Mrs. Althouse’s class are any
indication, the art will be around for a long
time. Before the end of the two hour
session, some very lovely scratched eggs
had been created, and the class members
till have three sessions to go.
One reason Evelyn calls the art form
“ordinary” is that it requires little in the
way of tools. A dyed egg and an ordinary
hat pin are all that are necessary to create
a sample of the art. A few other simple
items make the design easier to ac
complish. If a border is to be used, Mrs.
Althouse says a rubber band around the
egg creates the right effect She suggests
making a few dots along the edges of the
band with a charcoal pencil, either white
or black, and fill in the outline with a pin,
. using “short back and forth strokes.” Any
f remaining charcoal marks can be used for
the scratching. Evelyn recalls, “I learned
. with a razor blade and pin, but a small
utility knife will do. You can use any tool
The above two eggs were delicately scratched during a
class on early Pennsylvania German egg scratching held at
the Landis Valley Farm Museum by Evelyn Aithouse
recently. Evelyn, who enjoys reviving this art, teaches one
,of her pupils (right) how to hold the egg to begin the'
scratching. It takes a lot of concentration and close at
tention to detail to do this craft. In the picture to the left,
Evelyn stirs onion skins to make dyes while Mrs. James
Lessley, Ephrata, to the right of the photo, is intent on
scratching the design on the surface of her dyed egg.
Easter custom
comfortable for working. My mother used
a paring knife.”
The dyeing of the egg comes first, and
the most common dye is onion skins.
Evelyn points out that this is one of the
non-poisonous dyes found in nature. To
make her dye, Evelyn covers a quantity of
, onion skins with water, using an enamel
**pot for the actiiaT Cooking. She cOoks the
skins for one to 1% hours, stirring oc
. then strains the skins for an
even dye. For a dark color, purple onion .
skins can be used, and for a light orange
color alum can be added to Jhe dye.
Vinegar will bring out a dark red color on
the finished egg. y
- Evelyn saysthe dye should bejjooled to
room temperature, with the egg£ also at
room temperature. She then addstfae eggs,,
one by one, and cooks them until hardf
boiled: Chicken eggs should bis, cooked
about % hour and duck or goose eggs about
45 minutes, she said.
“The msidesofthe hard cookedegg will
dry up eventually, and the shell will
become paper thin,” Evelyn noted. One
danger is that occasionally a hard cooked
egg will explode from the ga&s which
form while it is drying. For thfe reason,
she said she prefers working with a blown
egg, espcially if the decorated egg is to be
sold. The bl&wn egg will maintain its rigid
shell fora lifetime.
Evelyn pointed out that goose eggs and
duck eggs tend to have firmer shells than
chicken eggs, so are a little easier to work
with. “I use mostly blown ones, and to get
an even dye, I fill the egg shell with the dye
and it will sink to the bottom of the pan.
Then I simmer the egg in the dye until it is
the color I want.”
There are many things in nature which
make attractive, acceptable dyes for eggs
Evelyn said that any dye which works with
wool will also be effective with eggs.
Examples of good dyes are: lettuce as it is
ready to go to seed; green carrot tops,
marigold flowers, logwood, sassafrass,
osage orange, elderberries, the leaf of the .
lily of the valley, meadow tea and tomato I
vines.
I
N
0
T
E
S