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The Easter Bunny, in case you’ve been living in a cave, on Mars, with your fingers in your ears, is an anthropomorphic, egg-laying rabbit who sneaks into homes the night before Easter to deliver baskets full of colored eggs, toys and chocolate. A wise man once told me that “all religions are beautiful and all religions are wacko,” but even if you allow for miracles, angels, and pancake Jesus, the Easter Bunny really comes out of left field.
If you go way back, though, the Easter Bunny starts to make a little sense. Spring is the season of rebirth and renewal. Plants return to life after winter dormancy and many animals mate and procreate. Many pagan cultures held spring festivals to celebrate this renewal of life and promote fertility. One of these festivals was in honor of Eostre or Eastre, the goddess of dawn, spring and fertility near and dear to the hearts of the pagans in Northern Europe. Eostre was closely linked to the hare and the egg, both symbols of fertility.
As Christianity spread, it was common for missionaries to practice some good salesmanship by placing pagan ideas and rituals within the context of the Christian faith and turning pagan festivals into Christian holidays (e.g. Christmas). The Eostre festival occurred around the same time as the Christians’ celebration of Christ’s resurrection, so the two celebrations became one, and with the kind of blending that was going on among the cultures, it would seem only natural that the pagans would bring the hare and egg images with them into their new faith (the hare later became the more common rabbit).
The pagans hung on to the rabbit and eventually it became a part of Christian celebration. We don’t know exactly when, but it’s first mentioned in German writings from the 1600s. The Germans converted the pagan rabbit image into Oschter Haws, a rabbit that was believed to lay a nest of colored eggs as gifts for good children. (A poll of my Twitter followers reveals that 81% of the people who replied believe the Easter Bunny to be male, based mostly on depictions where it’s wearing a bowtie. The male pregnancy and egg-laying mammal aspects are either side effects of trying to lump the rabbit and egg symbols together, or rabbits were just more awesome back then.)
Oschter Haws came to America with Pennsylvania Dutch settlers in the 1700s, and evolved into the Easter Bunny as it became entrenched in American culture. Over time the bunny started bringing chocolate and toys in addition to eggs (the chocolate rabbit began with the Germans, too, when they started making Oschter Haws pastries in the 1800s).
The Easter Bunny also went with European settlers to Australia, as did actual bunnies, since there were no indigenous rabbits in Oz. These rabbits, fertile as they are, got a little out of control, so the Aussies regard them as serious pests. The destruction they’ve caused to habitats is responsible for the major decline of some native animals and causes millions of dollars worth of damage to crops. It is, perhaps, not a great idea to use an invasive species as a symbol for a religious holiday, so Australia retired the Easter Bunny and replaced it with the Easter Bilby (above, on the right), an endangered marsupial that kind of looks like a bunny if you squint.
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Comments (23)
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“Lamb” by Christopher Moore also has an excellent explanation of the origins of the Easter Bunny (and is, overall, a very funny book).
posted by Kate on 4-9-2009 at 1:08 pm
I like the Easter Bilby so much more than an Easter Bunny. In my next lifetime it want to have Easter Pterodactyls
posted by cincypete on 4-9-2009 at 1:21 pm
I always knew the Easter Bunny was male, but I grew up thinking that rather than laying the eggs himself, he employed chickens who painted and decorated the eggs for him… he just gathered them up and delivered them. Must have watched too many cartoons as a tyke.
posted by Mama9cats on 4-9-2009 at 1:30 pm
It is interesting that a bunny that lays eggs happens to be male. It seems that this defiance of the hegemonic sexuality/reproductive norms has been largely overlooked by society.
posted by StrangelyTim on 4-9-2009 at 1:35 pm
Is it just me or does the bunny on the front page looked really honked off and like he’s ready to kill somebody!?
posted by crocostimpy on 4-9-2009 at 1:45 pm
I, too, never thought the Easter Bunny LAID the eggs, he just delivered them.
And given the choice, I’d like to be visited by the Easter Monkey.
posted by TBV on 4-9-2009 at 1:48 pm
Great article! Bill Hicks did a great bit on Easter. The bit starts at 0:22. If you have never heard his comedy I highly recomend it.
youtube.com/watch?v=AnjFhdO90Rg
posted by Stacy on 4-9-2009 at 1:51 pm
Actually, TBV, our family does get visited by the Easter Monkey. A tradition that my uncle began when I was small…he paints bananas and leaves them for the kids in the family. I’m looking forward to my daughter being visited by both Easter Bunny (at home) and Easter Monkey (at the grandparents’ house)!
posted by Laura G. on 4-9-2009 at 2:11 pm
I discovered the Easter Bilby many years ago, whilst working on a website for all things Chocolate. I LOVE the Easter Bilby. My dad, on a trip to Australia, even brought us back chocolate Easter Bilbies (which I hear are easier to find in Western parts of Australia, like Perth, than they are on the Eastern side)…
Awesome post, and you ROCK for mentioning the Easter Bilby!!!
Blessed Ostara (a little laste) and Happy Easter!
posted by Lidiu on 4-9-2009 at 2:25 pm
Crown Candy in Saint Louis is the Home of the Easter Monkey!
posted by Rachael on 4-9-2009 at 2:32 pm
I find the pagan connection to be weakly supported at best. I know that it’s the common one and I also get that it fits the mindset that everyone has about the spread of Christianity. However, there is such a gap between the spread of Christianity and the appearance of the Easter Bunny that I wouldn’t be surprised if the actual source was little more than a tale told to children, without all of the fertility overtones that everyone always brings up. I mean you have to consider that we’re talking at least a 1000 year gap with nothing recorded. Not definitive of course but certainly telling.
posted by David on 4-9-2009 at 2:44 pm
Another one here who never thought the E.B. laid the eggs. I, too, imagine a giant hen house, with the Big Bunny collecting and dyeing eggs.
posted by Vickey on 4-9-2009 at 3:15 pm
I never thought the bunny actually lays the eggs, especially since bunnies are born live. I had a rabbit when I was young so I witnessed this and trying to tell me that they lay eggs would not have fooled me. I was told that he comes around overnight and hides the eggs that we colored and decorated, and he also leaves awesome Easter baskets, hah.
This is what I do with my son now.
posted by Sarah in CA on 4-9-2009 at 3:19 pm
PS – And you’d really be messing with kid’s minds since the Easter Bunny miraculously lays CHICKEN eggs, hahaha.
posted by Sarah in CA on 4-9-2009 at 3:22 pm
I always figured the masculinity of the Easter Bunny was due to our societies inclination to make anyone/thing of importance male. Even something as feminine sounding as an egg-laying rabbit gets masculinized because we would never (god forbid) assume anything to be defaultly female!
posted by Bri on 4-9-2009 at 3:32 pm
i was raised in a catholic household and was never fed any of this bull about the easter bunny being real like santa. the same goes for all of my classmates in catholic school as a kid. kids are more likely to believe that barney is real than the easter bunny.
posted by bob on 4-9-2009 at 4:03 pm
I forget the exact details but my Medieval European History professor, Clifford Backman, told us that in feudal Europe, the peasants had to pay tithes to their lords on holidays and since they didn’t have actual currency, they gave them what they had available to them during Easter, which were eggs and rabbits. If anyone’s interested it’s mentioned somewhere in his book, The Worlds of Medieval Europe
posted by Jessica on 4-9-2009 at 4:25 pm
I read somewhere recently a tale about Eostre changing a wounded bird into a rabbit, but the transformation was incomplete and the bunny could still lay eggs. Anyone else heard of this?
posted by Kevin H on 4-10-2009 at 1:55 pm
Hey Matt, this is a great article. Easter is one of my favorite holidays. It’s another excuse to paint eggs, hide them, and dress up in a huge bunny suit which somehow earns you the adoration of young children. Thanks for demystifying the origin of the bunny. I made a list on my website of the top ten reasons I love about Easter: toptentopten.com/topten/reasons+i+love+easter. You can vote and also add your own reasons.
posted by Vince on 4-10-2009 at 2:31 pm
I grew up on a farm with chickens, so I knew where eggs came from: chicken butts. So when I was told the Easter Bunny laid eggs, I figured the eggs came from his butt. In anticipation of the holiday, I prepared for the holiday by making a nest for the Easter Bunny, sort of the way I would also hang a stocking for Santa. The nest would be a place where the Easter Bunny laid me some Easter eggs. But then, when the Easter Bunny left me such gifts as a BB gun and a box kite, I imagined him pooping me such toys from his butt. I felt sorry for him, imagine how much that must hurt.
posted by wpbrain on 5-7-2009 at 8:47 pm
We should have had the Easter Echidna :: an egg laying mammal!
posted by Ange on 5-10-2009 at 11:24 pm
I grew up in Bolivia. We were too poor to own a chicken, so we didn’t know what eggs where when I was I wee little vaquero. Me Madre did not want us to grow up with no good memories of the resurection of the Jesus man, so she did the best she could. She would spend 3 nights a year (one for each of us bebe’s) in the deepest part of the jungles. When she came home in the mornings, she looked like she had been ran over by a tremendous herd of burros. Years later when I was a grown man supporting myself and my wife at the age of 11, Me Madre finaly told me what she was doing in the deep dark jungles. She said “Pollo Loco”, thats what she call me. It means crazy chicken. Me Madre es Funny, huh? Anyway, she say “Pollo Loco, do you remember when you and your lil’ brother and lil’ sister would wake up on the morning of the Jesus man and you would have little woven baskets with the round tasty treats that tasted sweet and crunchy?” And I says “Yes, Madre. I remembers”. And she says “Well Pollo, I would go into the jungles to offer myself to the man of the mountain. And when he was done with using me up he would give me those pequito nuggets that tasted so sweet”. So that is how me and my brother and my seeester were taught the greatest tradition in our family. It’s all because f me Madre that we celebrate the arrival of the Easter El chupacabra! And if you are a good little vaquero, he will leave one of his sweet, tasty little Chupacabra poops in your basket! I love de Jesus man day! I love me Madre, too.
posted by Brady on 8-31-2009 at 9:37 pm
Where did the Easter bunny come from? The stork brought him!
posted by Miss Cellania on 9-8-2009 at 9:01 am