Did you know that the Easter Bunny is German? Along with St. Nikolaus http://www.walled-in-berlin.com/j-elke-ertle/dont-forget-st-nikolaus-day-december-6/, Santa Claus and the Christkind (Christ child), the Easter Bunny brought gifts to the children on the night before the respective holiday. The Easter Bunny stems from the German tradition of the Osterhase (Easter hare). Only good children received colored eggs in nests, which they had made from their caps and bonnets before Easter.
The Easter Bunny, as a symbol for Easter, is first mentioned in writings in 16th century Germany. The first edible Easter Bunnies were produced in Germany in the early 1800s. When Germans began emigrating to America, and especially to Pennsylvania, in the 18th century, they brought the tradition of the Osterhase with them. The tradition spread across the country, until it the Easter Bunny also became a part of American Traditions.
The Easter Bunny (before immigrating to the United States 😃). Handmade in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) and available through Mueller Smokerman. www.walled-in-berlin.com
Why would a hare bring eggs?
A hare doesn’t lay eggs. Why would he be associated with eggs during Easter? There are numerous legends tying the hare to eggs. Most likely, the connection originated in farming communities. In the Middle Ages, Green Thursday – the Thursday before Easter – typically marked the end of the business year and the time when tenant farmers had to pay their taxes to the owners of the land they worked. Because these farmers had fasted throughout Lent, the period just before Easter, they frequently had accumulated a surplus of eggs. Often, these eggs became the currency of choice, and many farmers paid their taxes with cooked eggs and with hares they had killed in their fields.
Another legend has it that the hare was the sacred beast of Eostre, the Saxon goddess of Spring and Dawn. However according to the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore there is no evidence that hares were sacred to Eostre.
Easter eggs and the Easter Bunny
After the Lenten fast had ended, peasants prepared special dishes with decorated eggs as part of the celebration. Later, German Protestants retained the custom of eating colored eggs for Easter. By the end of the Second World War, the Easter Bunny had become mainstream.
The oldest surviving decorated egg dates back to the fourth century A.D. and was discovered in a Romano-Germanic sarcophagus near Worms in Rhineland-Palatinate. https://www.thelocal.de/20170410/made-in-germany-the-very-deutsch-origins-of-the-easter-bunny
The Easter Bunny (after immigrating to the United States 😀). Photo © J. Elke Ertle, 2018. www.walled-in-berlin.com
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Walled-In is my story of growing up in Berlin during the Cold War. Juxtaposing the events that engulfed Berlin during the Berlin Blockade, the Berlin Airlift, the Berlin Wall and Kennedy’s Berlin visit with the struggle against my equally insurmountable parental walls, Walled-In is about freedom vs. conformity, conflict vs. harmony, domination vs. submission, loyalty vs. betrayal.
Tags: Easter, Easter Bunny, Easter eggs, Easter hare, German immigrants, Lenten fast, Osterhase
