The Easter Bunny

Since Easter is approaching I thought I would post from a piece I found in an old text book recently.  The text cites one of the first mentions of the Easter bunny was from a German book around 1570.  The story claims to be a fable of how the Easter bunny would lay and hide his eggs it tells everyone not to worry if you cannot find the Easter bunny or his eggs then they would cook his nest.  I admit we didn’t get the moral of the fable beyond the razing of the Easter bunny’s house The holiday is believed to have it’s origins in pre Christain lore from the Anglo-Saxon spring and fertility godess, Eostre, to whom the month of April was dedicated.  Eostre’s festival was always celebrated on the vernal equinox, the first day of Spring.  Since the hare/rabbit is associated with Spring, he naturally fit right in with the celebrations welcoming Spring.  Additionally associated with the moon and the moon determines the date to which Easter falls yearly.  The Council of Nicea in 325 determined Easter should always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon following March 21st (Eostre’s Day)

Since the hare/rabbit is a symbol of fertility and new life in the springtime.  The egg represents new life also, it must have seemed very easy to ancient society to link the two symbols together for Easter which symbolizes new life, rebirth and resurrection.  The text didn’t cite any more references to current religions and Easter’s sacred meaning for many Christains worldwide. 

The hare/rabbit connected in history in the moon have many references connected with the lunar goddes Hecate, who is associated with dark and evil deeds.  In China the hare was one of the reincarnations that Buddha took form leaping into the fire and imprinted this image on the moon.  In Han times the toad and the rabbit lived together on the moon.  In Greece the rabbit was associated with libido and with Aphrodite, in Rome with Diana the moon goddess.  Diana was also the goddess of witches and the hare/rabbit became a totem of witches at one point in European lore.  The hare enbodied many of the ‘black cat” tales we have today.  A hare crossing your path would bring you bad luck.  Witches could change form into hares/rabbits and could only be destroyed with a silver bullet (sound familar) if merely wounded then the hunters would look for a women with a similar injury and she would be put to death. 

The hare/rabbit tales changed again over time,  African slaves believed the rabbit a trickster and brought these tales to the South.  These are perhaps my favorite tales of rabbits, Brer Rabbit out foxing all the plantation animals.  These are stories I have enjoyed reading to my son over the years, he did them in a literature fair a couple of years ago winning at the local county level with his insights and artwork of Brer Rabbit.  A teacher and I were the only two adults there that knew the stories of Brer Rabbit, we had a terrific conversation about the stories and all the hidden gems of human nature tucked within them.

Hope everyone is looking for to Spring and a visit from the Easter bunny.