Some celebrate Easter with church services. Some do it with chocolate eggs. In Fredericksburg, the Saturday evening preceding Easter sees the town lights doused and the hilltops surrounding the settlement bursting into flame. While folklore has it that Fredericksburg’s Easter Fires originated as signals of a parley with the Comanche in 1847, the fires are actually a German tradition hundreds of years old—one that may date to pre-Christian times. When this photo was taken in 1969, the festivities included a cast of 600 who performed pantomimes and songs; the building of “bunny nests” of wildflowers; and choreographed dances, complete with people dressed in “Indian headdresses” and, of course, bunny outfits. The resulting photos show the fairy-tale-like event, which you can still experience. In Fredericksburg, the pageant continues to run much as it did in the past—down to the fires blazing on the hills in the distant dark.
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