Easter Bonfire
4 April 2026 · movable holiday — Come closer to the fire – spring is here, and our sparks become stars!
The Easter bonfire (German: Osterfeuer) is an old custom, especially widespread in northern Germany. On the evening of Holy Saturday or on Easter Sunday, whole villages and towns light large open-air fires, and people gather to chat, share food and welcome spring. The custom is linked to the church rite of the Easter fire, but in many places it has become above all a community celebration. Branches and garden cuttings are often piled up days beforehand. In folk tradition, the fire drives away winter and darkness. Today, local safety rules and permits must be observed. The link to the sky lies in the calendar: Easter is a movable feast, falling on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox (by the church reckoning, after 21 March). That is why the fires glow at the start of spring, when days are growing longer than nights.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver figure made of bright dots and connected lines, like a constellation, shaped as a great crackling bonfire with a few tiny villager figures gathered around it
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