Easter, Is It REALLY A Pagan Holiday?

So, I made it quite clear a while back that Christmas was very much a Pagan holiday. I even explained how Groundhog Day's traditions are rooted in Paganism, and how St. Patrick's Day started as a celebration of the conversion of Irish Pagans to Christianity. Well, now it's Easter and I'm back again to share the origins of yet another holiday. At this point (and especially with this holiday), you're probably thinking "what did Christianity steal this time?"

But wait. Easter's different. Believe it or not, Easter wasn't originally a Pagan holiday.

Come Again?

Yep, you read that right. The Easter holiday is actually not "stolen" from Paganism. Now, that's not to say that some of the themes were derived from Paganism, nor that some Pagan cultures didn't recognize the Spring Equinox.

If Easter is derived from any other religion's celebrations, that celebration would most likely be the Jewish Passover, which also falls around this time (for those who are interested, the Spring Equinox, known by modern Pagans as Ostara or Eostre, was March 21). Author and game designer Adrian Bott rants annually about the "Eostre Myth" in detail in his personal blog. (Wikipedia also does well with providing the facts about Eostre.)

Contrary to the "Pagan History of Easter" stories about the "Teutonic Goddess, Eostre," Christian Easter actually predates the Hebrew's contact with the Teutonic/Germanic people. So, even if there was such a goddess as Eostre/Ostara, she was not the origin of the term "Easter."

So, where did Eostre come from?

The short answer?

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance. -- The Venerable Bede, in his De Temporum Ratione ("On the Reckoning of Time")

That's it. That is the extent of the ancient texts about the supposed goddess, Eostre, about which it's likely that the author himself was just making her up.

Now, to be fair, there are cognates of her name in the Indo-European words for dawn, so the words Eostre, Ostara do potentially have some merit (it seems to me that it's a case of misunderstanding between languages or dialects, such as the case with the White Rhino, who's indigenous name doesn't mean "white" at all).

To make things even more interesting, some Christian sects have even perpetuated the myth of Eostre. Why? Because these sects believe Easter to be purely Pagan in origin. Having evidence, no matter how fabricated, that Easter is Pagan, allows these sects to continue to denounce the holiday.

As you can see, Eostre is complicated enough, but is so far a flat character. She needs a story to go with her, doesn't she?

Fear not! For there is one! It comes from a Ukranian folktale. Summarized by Bott:

When winter comes early one year, Katrusya stumbles upon a terrible discovery -- hundreds of golden birds buried in the snow. She begs her fellow villagers to help save the birds, and one by one, the little creatures are gathered into hats and gloves, coats and baskets, until they are all brought safely inside. But toward winter's end, Katrusya knows that the time has come to say goodbye, and the birds are freed. That spring, as Katrusya makes her way to church on Easter Sunday, she finds something wonderful hidden in the grass -- a beautifully decorated egg. And there's another and another! The birds' gift to their rescuers marks the beginning of the Ukrainian tradition of pysanky and provides a reminder of God's endless love for all creatures.

What about the Bunny?

The above folktale makes it pretty obvious how the tradition of decorating eggs came into the picture, but what about the bunny? The rabbit, as most people know, is a...*ahem*...busy creature, so it's not much of a stretch to figure that rabbits and hares were a sign of spring and its fertility. Okay, that makes sense.

Then you have the ideas of egg-laying bunnies. Eh, what? Welcome to the "Telephone" game we call humanity. The Ukranian folktale above somehow got twisted to something along the lines of Eostre finding hens in the snow and to save them, she turned them into bunnies, who were then so grateful that they laid colorful eggs for her.

And again, I say, what?

So...what about those cultures you said did celebrate the Spring Equinox?

There is evidence that the Norse people did, in fact, celebrate the Vernal Equinox. However, interactions between them and the Hebrews/Christians/Romans was very limited, if there was any at all, prior to the beginnings of the celebration of the Christian Easter. Therefore, the influences for Easter were not Pagan in origin.

Some believe there is very good reason for this -- the Pagans, many of which were agrarian cultures, simply didn't have time to hold major celebrations even if they did at least recognize the Equinox, as they were too busy getting their fields ready for planting.

So there you have it, the actual history of Easter. I must say, I have found a certain irony in the rejection of this holiday by some Christians, as it's the most "Christian" holiday (save for some of its customs) of the major ones I've seen yet.