Easter Bunny Hopping Through the Forest

Well, most of you who read this blog will already know what this post is before you go any further. But, there may be an off-chance someone new popped on by. So read on my friends! Read on!
By the way, does anyone know any Easter Bunny songs? By the end of my lunch hour I'm sure I'll find at least one.

‘Tis another season of fun-filled adventures with mythical creatures assigned to religious holidays.

The Easter season is just now upon us, what better to bring joy to the children of yours other than large quantities of chocolates in the shape of cute, cuddly bunnies and colorful eggs filled with sugar infused beans? And where, pray tell did these offerings of obesity making goodness come from? Why, where else than the giant hopping Bunny?

I ask, when did a religious holiday based on the resurrection of a dead man (who gave his life for all humanity…) involve a giant hopping Bunny with colorful eggs and chocolates shaped like his offspring? To simply answer: many, many years ago.

Let’s imagine a time before Christianity took over the lives of the thousands upon thousands of people. Imagine a time when people would get down on their knees upon witness of a solar eclipse-yet to them it was the dawning of a new age, a new god or goddess erected in the absence of the knowledge we have today; a story to tell sleepy children who would not let up on their parents with the wondering thoughts of the changing seasons.

Upon this, we will start our story within the Pagan community centuries before our time.

The beginning of Spring meant the awakening of Eastre: the goddess of fertility and new beginning. The winter season is now over and the seeds have been planted. The beginnings of life yet again burst from the once frozen ground. The timing was always perfect; just as the last snow flake falls, the sun will start to burst its radiant rays over the land. All is needed is the tender touch of the goddess to wake up the once sleeping world into a new day.

But, alas, there was one year that Eastre, frozen in her own slumber, failed to read the signs of the end of winter. Therefore, the winter season continued, yet the land, and creatures throughout, knew it to be spring. The birds tried to fly and the grass tried to grow, but Eastre, still in her slumber, had not awakened the warmth of a new spring day in order to allow creation to flow.

In a frenzy, Eastre awoke, only to find despair before her. A bird, trying to fly in the winter snow, lay with its wings frozen to the ground. Horribly heartbroken, this goddess of fertility would not allow the bird to die. Knowing that the bird would no longer live a happy life as a bird with two broken wings, she turned the bird into a winter hare, an animal as fertile as can be. Her compassion did not stop there; she gave the hare the power of speed, so he may out run any hunter and live for all eternity. In order to keep the hare close to its original roots, she gave him the ability to lay eggs, eggs as colorful as a perfect spring day (though of course the hare-and therefore previous bird-were both symbolized as being male. Male birds do not lay eggs. Was this really an ability the hare would want? Who am I to judge?). This hare could only lay these eggs upon the awakening of Eastre and the beginning of spring.

The hare, now a happy creation of spring, hopped about the land, laying his offerings for all to enjoy in the celebration of the rebirth of the lands.

But what has this to do with Easter? Upon the birth of Christianity, the Christians tried to make their religion look attractive to the Pagan’s by turning Pagan festivals into Christian holidays. The Pagan Eastre festival occurred around the same time the Christians marked the resurrection of the Christ Lord. Thus, melding the two celebrations in one-the Bunny and all. Of course, over time the Christians took over the celebration of the season, turning Eastre into Easter and the symbolism of the bunny (hare) into innocence and sacrificial offerings. Again, symbolizing the innocence of Christ and the ultimate sacrifice: his life for humanity.

The Easter Bunny we know today actually stemmed from the Germans (ah, the Germans, good at everything but coming up with a fool proof plan to take over the world). It was their tradition, in the early 1600’s, that on Easter morning, children would wake to find that the Easter Bunny left little pellets of goodies for them to either find throughout the house or in the special made Easter ‘nests’ they worked so hard on prior to the night before Easter. As immigrants traveled to the New World, their traditions often followed (well, technically speaking traditions can’t follow anything, but the immigrants would continue with their traditions even after leaving their home countries).

In the 1700’s the Pennsylvania-Dutch (German immigrants) would celebrate their traditional Easter; Bunny droppings and all. This eventually caught on and other American settlers jumped in on the bunny craze.

As with all historical traditions, the actual history is lost-but there will always be someone willing to find the meaning behind the, what seems to be, off-the-wall celebrations of well-meaning holidays.

So, friends, I leave you with yet another holiday mythological creature busted. There is no six-foot bunny in pastel clothing hopping through the forest depositing colorful eggs filled with chocolates in the homes of young children. Again, it is just a Pagan belief created into a Christian tradition in order to keep the masses at peace-for a time being anyway.


Enjoy the Easter season and try not to give into the commercialization of the religious belief-whether it is the Christian or the long forgotten Pagan belief.




Happy Easter!