Even the Sundays leading up to Easter - Passion Sunday and Palm Sunday - have always been particularly rich in spring customs. In fact, it is with them that we associate the most important of such traditions: the symbolic banishment of winter and the ushering in of summer. The former (which is depicted on the FDC) is particularly interesting. Winter was symbolised by a straw figure dressed in female clothing and known as Morena, Smrť (Death) or Kyselica. The young would parade it, singing the while, around the village, before finally throwing it into water, or burning it. It was a...