Hare - Easter bunny was a hare originally
The tradition of the Easter bunny originates from West-european cultures, where it is a hare (Lepus europaeus) rather than a rabbit... German protestants had an abundance of eggs because of fasting. "German Protestants wanted to retain the Catholic custom of eating colored eggs for Easter, but did not want to introduce their children to the Catholic rite of fasting. Eggs were forbidden to Catholics during the fast of Lent, which was the reason for the abundance of eggs at Easter time." (source)
The Easter bunny / hare would leave eggs for good children. The egg and its symbolism comes from the Romans: "The Romans believed that all life proceeded from an egg, so the egg came to symbolize birth and rebirth. Christians regarded eggs as the seeds of life and attributed them with the symbol of Jesus' resurrection." (source)
Hares can run up to 70 kilometers per hour. Around spring, hares change their behavior and can be seen fighting each other, this can be either intermale competition or a female testing a male or rejecting him. Unlike the young of rabbits, the young of hares are born with fur and eyes open and are able to defend themselves quickly
Photo taken on 16 Sep 2004 by de:User:Fmickan, licensed under GFDL
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four comments:
Hare-raising
Wadard (Email) (URL) - 17 04 06 - 08:19
The story about German Protestants seems plausible, but the article it comes from seems otherwise unreliable – pity.
Steve Hayes (Email) (URL) - 12 04 09 - 16:53
I had always thought that it was originally a Pagan celebration of the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox. It worsshipped the Goddess Eostara (Easter) who was also sometimes portrayed as a rabbit. Correct me if I’m wrong.
WW (URL) - 16 04 09 - 04:30
WW
There is no evidence whatever that the goddess Eostre was portrayed as a rabbit. Nothing is known for certain about her beyond her name. An English monk, Bede, wrote that the old English name for April was Eostremonath, and that it came from a goddess Eostre who was worshipped around that time, but nothing else is known about her and how she was worshipped, and some historians believe that Bede got it wrong, or was making it up, and there was no such goddess at all.
The Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ was called Pascha (the same as the Jewish Passover) and its timing was based on that, but Christians didn’t like to wait for the Jews to calculate the date, so they decided to make thedir own calculations, and settled it as the Sunday after the first full moon after the 21st March, and the calculation was to be announced by the Pope of Alexandria (Alexandria had the best astronomers at the time).
Steve Hayes (Email) (URL) - 16 04 09 - 05:46
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