Morrisons, the United Kingdom's fourth largest supermarket chain, offers 54 different varieties of chocolate egg—including bronzed, Guinness and evangelizing versions—but only one of them is a £6 Game of Thrones Easter egg designed to look like a dragon egg once held by Daenerys Targaryen.
Since before recorded history, painted eggs have symbolized death and rebirth in springtime rituals and rites. Painted eggshells have been found at ancient sites in Ukraine, Crete, Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Carthaginians painted ostrich eggs. Sumerians were sometimes buried with gold and silver egg sculptures. Early Christians dipped eggs in red colouring, to symbolize the blood of Jesus (an idea they got from the Persians). Some eggs denoted family lines, others symbolized kings. The universe, the first human, the seasons and the source of all water was, in one culture or another, birthed from a celestial egg.
Eggs are also, of course, both the source and exemplar of Queen Daenerys's power, long may she reign on the Iron Throne after killing the usurper Cersei. From Daenerys's three dragon eggs were born Rhaegal, Viserion (since killed and turned into a wight by the Night King) and Drogon. But while holding great potential power in themselves, it was only when Daenerys stepped into the fire herself that dragons were once again born into the world. So, in celebration of her incipient reign over Westeros, but most of all, in celebration of market-enabled consumer choice, Morrisons will offer a Game of Thrones Easter egg with chocolate scales and a dusting of gold and ruby color.
"We wanted to make fantasy a reality," Alan Edkins, holder of the fascinating job title "Easter Egg Buyer" for Morrisons, told Wales Online. Edkins went on to squeeze a truly heroic amount of word play into a sentence, adding, "Our 'Mother' of all Easter eggs is likely to cause a 'storm' 'born' of fearless shoppers and fans looking to get their hands on a truly legendary egg."
The Game of Thrones Easter egg is nearly 8 inches high and just over half a pound in weight. Instead of a dragon inside, it is hollow.
The Game of Thrones Easter egg looks almost exactly like the pine cones Gandalf and his pals lit on fire in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and will be available in 430 stores in the U.K. Take that, America.
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