To
get to the origins of Easter, we have to go back further than the
remembrance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You
may have wondered why Easter falls on such a wide range of dates
every year. You may not know
that Easter always falls upon the first Sunday after the first
full moon on or after the spring equinox. That means that it can
be as early as March 22 or as late as April 25.
The reason the date
is based upon a lunar calendar is because it's determined by the
Jewish holiday Passover. Historically, cultures that are mostly
agrarian (back when most everyone depended on farming for food)
have usually celebrated seasonal holidays that are determined by
the equinoxes, solstices, or lunar cycles. Many Jewish holidays
began on this seasonal schedule, but later acquired historical
meaning from the experiences of the Jewish people.
 However, because Easter is
always just after the vernal equinox, it became inextricably bound up with the older
spring celebrations of many cultures, not the least of which were the Anglo-Saxons of
Britain. A major source for the early history of Britain and the origins of the word
"Easter" is the Venerable Bede (673-735 C.E.), a monk who wrote a great deal
about Anglo-Saxon mythology and about Easter.
According to Bede, Pascha Sunday (the Church
holiday celebrating the resurrection of Christ) was called Easter in connection with the
Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre (also called Ostara).
Eostre is the goddess of spring, and she
is venerated at the vernal equinox. So it's not surprising that she and her accompanying
symbolism were incorporated into the new religion's festival, corresponding as it did so
well to the already familiar springtime themes of rebirth, new life, new hope, and light.
 So who is Eostre? And what does
she have to do with bunnies? There is little written lore available on Eostre, but the
Venerable Bede and Jacob Grimm both affirmed her existence based on folklore and the
traditional German Easter festival Ostarun. According to legend, she is associated with
Spring, as well as with the sunrise. Some of the traditional lore that has been passed
down relates the story of Eostre, who saved a bird whose wings were frozen from the harsh
winter by turning it into a hare.
However, it was a magical hare who could actually lay
eggs. In fact, Eostre was nearly always accompanied in legend and art with a hare. It's
easy to see the connection between this myth and the story of the Easter Bunny. Also,
because rabbits reproduce so rapidly, they are often associated with fertility, so the
connection between rabbits, eggs (the means of reproduction for many species) and a
goddess of Spring (a time of new life and fertility) rings true for many present-day
Pagans who still venerate the old Anglo-Saxon gods and goddesses.
Is that where the eggs came from? Well, yes and no. Eggs have worldwide
associations with rebirth, new life, and fertility - for obvious reasons. So the use of
the egg as a symbol of Spring need not be directly connected to the myth of
Eostre. The
Ukraine has perhaps the most famous Easter eggs, the fabulously decorated
pysanky. In Poland, Easter eggs are traditionally blessed by a
priest before being shared by family and friends. Orthodox
Christians dye eggs red, presumably in relation to the blood of
the risen Christ.
Before eating the eggs, people
tap their eggs against one another's; according to custom, the
person who cracks the other's egg first will have good luck. In
many countries, eggs are exchanged on Easter Sunday, with the
greeting "Christ is risen." In Britain, the custom of
egg-rolling still persists, and gave rise, beginning with
President Madison, to the famous White House egg roll in the
U.S. So it's easy to see that eggs have a long history nearly
everywhere Easter is celebrated.
 So while Christians are celebrating the birth or resurrection of Jesus, modern-day
Pagans are celebrating the return of light, or the sacred marriage of the God and Goddess.
The fact that all these people celebrate at about the same time, with many of the same
symbols, doesn't seem to matter much to them.
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