Happy Easter!

The Easter Bunny: Fact or Fiction?

Easter is a derivative of the Saxon, Eoster, goddess of the moon. Unlike many of our holidays Easter is not at its roots a solar holiday but one of the moon.

Now before there were domesticated bunnies we had hares. The moon has a month long cycle. Hares, the most prolific beasts on the planet, are born after a one month gestation and being nocturnal are the only mammals born with their eyes open. Thus, they’ve been associated with the moon for as long as there have been men on the planet.

Moon and hares, a match made in heaven, which Rome apparently realized and thus ordered the holiday be celebrated following a specific moon cycle, the reason for its ever- changing date.

But prior to Easter there is Lent, the fasting. And in early times eggs were forbidden. There’s a surplus. What to do?

Not wanting to celebrate a “Roman” holiday but hip deep in eggs, the German-Dutch Protestants of the 1700’s discovered Osterhase, a wily hare who made her nests in “good” children’s hats and bonnets and into which she laid dozens of colorful eggs. But how is this possible you ask?

Well, let me tell you…

Many of you know about Opal, the Dutch mini-lop who had free rein in our back yard. Last spring while our visiting 6 year old grandson and I were sitting on the floor playing a hand of War a mourning dove (the stupidest bird on the planet) crashed head first into the plate glass window to our right. Anxious to see if the bird survived the impact, we raced outside and what do we find? Where the bird should have fallen we found Opal, her mouth full of petunias, and beside her, a little blue-white egg! Yup, she’d done it!

So there you have it…the Easter Bunny is fact.

Sandy

posted by MJFredrick @ 3:16 PM