Ancient symbols of Easter season rooted in ideas of renewal
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Editor’s note: This story was originally published in 2012.
If there’s no bunny in the basket, there’s no Easter.
That’s Norm Candelore’s theory this time of year. People buy more chocolate bunnies at Sarris Candies than any other candy during the Easter season, and the Canonsburg candymaker builds its baskets around them, said Candelore, retail operations manager.
“It’s what the kids are looking for. It represents the holiday,” Candelore said.
Whether dark and chocolaty or white and furry, the rabbit, often accompanied by colored eggs, is the widely recognized symbol of Christianity’s holiest day.
The images have roots in several traditions dating to the Middle Ages.
“Rabbits are a symbol of fertility and eggs are more plentiful in the spring, and as you go back through time, you see that many religions and cultures had festivals in the spring to celebrate the end of a long, hard winter and both rabbits and eggs took center stage,” said Michael Cahall, an assistant professor of history at Duquesne University.
Centuries ago, pagans in what is now Germany held an Eostre festival each spring that was centered around the hare, Cahall said. Eostre was a German goddess of spring, dawn and fertility, he said, and eggs were plentiful during the festival.
Ancient Romans also held egg festivals in the spring to celebrate the season, Cahall said.
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As Europeans converted to Christianity, groups adopted and tweaked popular pagan traditions. The Eostre festival occurred around the same time as the Christian celebration of Christ’s resurrection, and the two melded to become Easter. The use of rabbits and eggs was incorporated into the new holiday.
The popularity of rabbits and eggs spread through Europe in the 17th century.
In Germany in the 1660s, children made nests for the bunny out of hats. The bunny, in turn, brought them painted eggs, Cahall said.
The practice became known as the Oster Hase tradition, which translates into Easter hare, according to Louis J. Boyle, a Carlow University English professor with a specialty in folklore tradition.
In some areas, including Leister, England, it became custom for boys to hunt rabbits and deliver them to the village parsons for dinner on Good Friday, Boyle said. Villagers considered rabbits a sign of good luck.
“Rabbits start appearing more frequently in the spring, and hens lay more eggs as it warms up,” Boyle said. “It makes sense if you think about it. Winters were often harsh and food was scarce. The idea of hunting it and celebrating it as part of a religious celebration came very naturally.”
Eggs also play a role in Judaism. Jews place an egg on the table for the Seder dinner, celebrated at sundown on Friday when Passover begins, said Rabbi Michael Werbow of the Congregation Beth Shalom in Squirrel Hill.
The Germans brought the Oster Hase tradition here in the 1700s and 1800s, Boyle said. The hats that children once turned into nests became Easter baskets, Cahall said.
“It has progressively gotten commercialized and more generalized over time, especially once they arrived in America, but these symbols are rooted in faith-based ideas of the renewal of life, of fertility and new beginnings,” Cahall said.
The Easter bunny usually takes the form of a piece of chocolate or a person in a rabbit suit at egg hunts.
Live rabbits often find their way into family celebrations, but animal rights advocates caution against that.
Workers at the Western Pennsylvania Humane Society in the North Side said many people want to adopt bunnies for children as gifts. Unprepared to care for them, they often return the rabbits to the shelter, spokeswoman Gretchen Fieser said.
“Bunnies need a lot of time and care and they can live a long time,” Fieser said. “That cute bunny you gave to your third-grader may still be alive when that child is headed to college.”