One a penny, two a penny ...

9:22am Friday 21st March 2008

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AS with most Easter traditions, the origin of hot cross buns has little to do with Christianity.

The first example of small cakes being baked to mark the beginning of spring was seen in ancient cultures such as the Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians.

Cakes marked with a curved shape representing the horns of an ox, the animal associated with the moon, were offered to Ishtar, or Hathor, the goddess connected with fertility and renewal.

The Greeks and Romans also made cakes for their moon goddesses, again marking them with ox horns.

It is thought that the Greek for ox, 'boun', may have given us our word bun.

These little cakes to mark the arrival of spring soon caught on in Europe and eventually ended up in Britain.

The Saxons worshipped Eostre, the goddess of dawn and spring, this word deriving from the Norse eostur meaning the season of the growing sun.

It was Eostre who gave her name to Easter, the celebration of spring, and it was during this time that the Saxons made buns to offer the goddess.

The buns were marked with a cross rather than ox horns, but initially at least the cross did not have anything to do with the resurrection of Christ.

The pagan cross, used to represent the four phases of the moon, was the symbol of choice for the Saxons.

As Christian traditions began to dominate Easter, the buns took on a different meaning thanks to the cross conveniently echoing the traditional Christian cross.

On Good Friday in 1361 it is recorded that small spiced cakes, marked with a cross, were distributed by Father Thomas Rockliffe to the poor of St Albans. After this, it became traditional to make and eat hot cross buns every Good Friday.

You might not think to hang a hot cross bun in your home to keep evil away, but this is what people used to do, thinking the little cakes had miraculous powers.

Hot cross buns were also bizarrely used in powdered form to treat all types of illnesses.

A bun baked on Good Friday and left to get hard could be grated up and put in some warm milk and this was supposed to stop an upset tummy.

Another belief was that hot cross buns baked on Good Friday would never go mouldy - although this was probably because the buns were baked so hard that there was no moisture left in the mixture for the mould to live on!

Hot cross buns were traditionally eaten at breakfast time. They were once sold by street vendors who sang a little song about them: "Hot cross buns, Hot cross buns, One a penny, two a penny, Hot cross buns."

Another story about the origin of hot cross buns dates back to the 12th century, when an Angelican monk was said to have placed the sign of the cross on the buns, to honour Good Friday, a Christian holiday also known as the Day of the Cross.

Supposedly, this pastry was the only thing permitted to enter the mouths of the faithful on this holy day.

Other accounts talk of an English widow, whose son went off to sea. She vowed to bake him a bun every Good Friday. When he did not return she continued to bake a hot cross bun for him each year and hung it in the bakery window in good faith that he would some day return to her.