During Easter the Danes send out Gækkebreve. It is a somewhat old and very popular tradition. The idea originates from the German
bindebreve (= tie letter) and was common in Denmark from 16th - 18th century. The bindebrev's purpose was also to tease the recipient, just like a Gækkebrev. Some translates "gækkebrev" to "Gaggleletters" or, more surprisingly, to "loveletter". But what
gække really means is
to tease or
to fool.
This tradition only exists in Denmark and it is said that the first real Gækkebrev was created in the early 1800. Since then it has developed and has been added more nuance. In Denmark today, a genuine Gækkebrev consists of (name)dots, a poem and a paper cut.
Upon receiving a gækkebrev, the goal for the recipient is to guess the identity of the sender. A very easy task if the sender's name is Ib. You see, the sender's signature is written with dots, one for each letter in his name. A smart way to go about this is of course to use both one's first name, last name and/or middle name. If the recipient doesn't succeed then he's a
gæk - a fool. But if he does succeed then the sender is the fool. Who ever ends up being the fool must pay the penalty for this by either giving the other a kiss, an egg or throw him a party. Why an egg, you might ask. Well, nowadays we only use a chocolate Easter egg as penance but back then eggs were worth quite a bit and were actually used as means of payment in certain situations.
If you google gækkebrev you'll see that the letter comes in different shapes, colors and sizes. I chose green because it is suited for the season and, well, it's my favourite color heh. I decided to use the outline of anemones as it is the second most used flower during Easter. The most popular one (and which most Danes link to gækkebreve since not only do many enclose one in their gækkebrev, but its name, vintergæk (winter fool), is also related to this phenomenon) is the snowdrop but as it is a much smaller flower it would have taken forever to cut it out!
This is how mine looks:
I made this for my father as I know that he really appreciates this sort of thing. In order to make it difficult for him to guess my name I wrote the poem in Italics which (I hoped!) would make him believe that the sender was from one of the old people in his circle of acquaintances.
It worked like a charm! I visited him a week after he received the letter and as we exchanged news, he told me that he was puzzled by a gækkebrev that he had received recently. He then opened it, spelled out my name via the dots and then I though; crap! But then he started spelling out my cousin's name which, luckily, has the same amount of letters in both her first and middle name, HA!
I couldn't even get a word in edgeways before he started commenting the writing. He kept talking about possible identities to himself for some time and every now and then he'd cut himself off, asking himself; "which one of my friends has such a handwriting?!"
He still hasn't guessed it btw. so he owes me a chocolate egg
For those of you who are interested the poem I used goes like this:
"Bly, unselig og beskeden
fandt jeg vintergækken nys forleden.
Her i brevet jeg den varsomt lægger
den om sol og om forår tanken vækker.
Det er kun en en lille gæk jeg her dem giver
og den store gæk er de hvis de om mit
navn uvidende forbliver"
Unfortunately is loses something in translation but here goes:
shy and modest
I found the snowdrop the other day.
I enclose it carefully in this letter
which evokes thoughts of sun and spring.
It is only a small snowdrop I give you
but the real fool is you if you remain
unaware of my name