What does the easter bunny have to do with jesus
Easter Bunny
Folkloric figure and symbol
A postcard featuring the Easter Bunny | |
| Grouping | Legendary creature |
|---|---|
| Sub grouping | Animal |
| Folklore | Folkloric figure and symbol of Easter |
| Other name(s) | Easter Rabbit, Easter Hare |
| Country | Germany |
The Easter Bunny (also called the Easter Rabbit or Easter Hare) is a folkloric figure and symbol of Easter, depicted as a rabbit—sometimes dressed with clothes—bringing Easter eggs.
Easter bunny biography for kids There you have it, folks. The eating of the hare may have been associated with various longstanding folk traditions of scaring away witches at Easter. From the Greek world through the Renaissance, hares often appear as symbols of sexuality in literature and art. Eggs, just like the rabbit, have long been considered an ancient symbol of fertility, rebirth and new life, all associated with the springtime celebration of Easter!Originating among German Lutherans, the "Easter Hare" originally played the role of a judge, evaluating whether children were good or disobedient in behavior at the start of the season of Eastertide,[1] similar to the "naughty or nice" list made by Santa Claus. As part of the legend, the creature carries colored eggs in its basket, as well as candy, and sometimes toys, to the homes of children.
As such, the Easter Bunny again shows similarities to Santa (or the Christkind) and Christmas by bringing gifts to children on the night before a holiday. The custom was first mentioned in Georg Franck von Franckenau's De ovis paschalibus ("About Easter Eggs") in , referring to a German tradition of an Easter Hare bringing eggs for the children.[2][3]
Symbols
Rabbits and hares
The hare was a popular motif in medieval church art.
In ancient times, it was widely believed (as by Pliny, Plutarch, Philostratus, and Aelian) that the hare was a hermaphrodite.[4][5][6] The idea that a hare could reproduce without loss of virginity led to an association with the Virgin Mary, with hares sometimes occurring in illuminated manuscripts and Northern European paintings of the Virgin and Christ Child.
Easter bunny coloring pages: The eating of the hare may have been associated with various longstanding folk traditions of scaring away witches at Easter. Do you include the Easter Bunny in your Easter celebration? For a fun recollection of Easter Bunny traditions in Germany in the s, check out this account from the Chicago Tribune. The goddess of spring, rebirth, and fertility, her icon was the rabbit, thanks to its ability to quickly procreate.
It may also have been associated with the Holy Trinity, as in the three hares motif.[4][7][unreliable source?][8]
Eggs
Main articles: Easter egg and Egg decorating
In Christianity, for the celebration of Eastertide, Easter eggs symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, from which Jesus was resurrected.[9][10][11] Eggs became associated with Easter specifically when eating them was prohibited during the fast of Lent, when believers abstained from meat and animal products—a practice that continues in certain Christian denominations today, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, and among Western Christians observing the Daniel Fast.[12][13][14] A common practice in England during the medieval Christian era was for children to go door-to-door begging for eggs on the Saturday before Lent began.
People handed out eggs as special treats for children to enjoy prior to the Lenten fast; people then abstained from eggs throughout Lent and could enjoy them once again with the conclusion of Lent at the arrival of Easter Sunday.[15][16] As a special dish, eggs have been decorated by Christians as part of the Easter celebrations.
Eggs boiled with some flowers change their color, bringing the spring into the homes, and some over time added the custom of decorating the eggs.[17][18] Many Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Church to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red "in memory of the blood of Christ, shed as at that time of his crucifixion."[11][19][16] The Ukrainian art of decorating eggs, known as pysanky.
Similar variants of this form of artwork are seen among other eastern and central European cultures.[20]
The idea of an egg-giving hare went to the U.S. in the 18th century.
Protestant German immigrants in the Pennsylvania Dutch area told their children about the "Osterhase" (sometimes spelled "Oschter Haws"[21]). Hase means "hare", not rabbit, and in Northwest European folklore the "Easter Bunny" indeed is a hare. According to the legend, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in the nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter.[22]
Gallery
Dreihasenfenster ('Window of Three Hares') in Paderborn Cathedral in Paderborn, Germany
Easter bunnies and Easter eggs as Easter biscuits
Marshmallow bunnies and candy eggs in an Easter basket
A real live bunny with decorated Easter eggs
Chocolate Easter bunnies
Chocolate Easter Bunny molds from Alsace Musée du pain d'épices
Alleged association with Ēostre
In a publication from German philologist Adolf Holtzmann stated "The Easter Hare is unintelligible to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara".[23] The connection between Easter and that goddess had been made by Jacob Grimm in his Deutsche Mythologie.[24] This proposed association was repeated by other authors including Charles Isaac Elton[25] and Charles J.
Billson.[26] In Christina Hole wrote, "The hare was the sacred beast of Eastre (or Ēostre), a Saxon goddess of Spring and of the dawn."[27][page&#;needed] The belief that Ēostre had a hare companion who became the Easter Bunny was popularized when it was presented as fact in the BBC documentary Shadow of the Hare ().[28]
The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore however states "nowadays, many writers claim that hares were sacred to the Anglo-Saxon goddess Ēostre, but there is no shred of evidence for this; Bede, the only writer to mention Ēostre, does not link her with any animal".[29]
A legend often encountered in contemporary times is that Eostre freed a frozen bird from a tree branch by turning it into a hare.
It still continued to lay eggs but, having no use for them anymore and in gratitude to the goddess, gave them away.[30][31] This has no basis in any authentic, pre-Christian folklore, myth or religion and only appears to date from , first published by K. A. Oberle in a book in German and later quoted by H.
Krebs in a notes section in the journal Folk-Lore, also in His quote is as follows:
Some time ago the question was raised how it came that, according to South German still prevailing folk-lore, the Hare is believed by children to lay the Easter-eggs. I venture now to offer a probable answer to it. Originally the hare seems to have been a bird which the ancient Teutonic goddess Ostara (the Anglo-Saxon Eàstre or Eostre, as Bede calls her) transformed into a quadruped.
For this reason the Hare, in grateful recollection of its former quality as bird and swift messenger of the Spring-Goddess, is able to lay eggs on her festival at Easter-time.[32]
See also
References
- ^Cross, Gary (). Wondrous Innocence and Modern American Children's Culture.
Oxford University Press. ISBN&#;.
- ^Franck von Franckenau, Georg (). Disputatione ordinaria disquirens de ovis paschalibus / von Oster-Eyern. Satyrae Medicae. Vol.&#;XVIII. Heidelberg. p.&#;6. Retrieved 18 July
- ^Winick, Stephen. "On the Bunny Trail: In Search of the Easter Bunny," LOC Blogs, Mar.
22, Retrieved Mar. 24,
- ^ abChapman, Chris (). "What does the Symbol Mean?". Three Hares Project.Easter bunny biography printable Caesar would likely have known that in the classical Greek tradition, hares were sacred to Aphrodite , the goddess of love. The island being E. Easy Dinners Welcome Baby Sofia! While this is only another part of the Easter Bunny myth, this fact would actually make sense given the history.
Archived from the original on 13 May Retrieved 20 April
- ^Marta Powell Harley (). "Rosalind, the hare, and the hyena in Shakespeare's As You Like It". Shakespeare Quarterly. 36 (3): – doi/ JSTOR&#; Archived from the original on Retrieved
- ^"Sir Thomas Browne (; 6th ed., ) Pseudodoxia Epidemica III:xvii (pp.
–)". Archived from the original on Retrieved
- ^"Three Hares as representation of the Trinity". Archived from the original on Retrieved
- ^Lewis-Stempel, John (). The Private Life of the Hare. Transworld. ISBN&#;.
- ^Anne Jordan (5 April ).
Christianity. Nelson Thornes. ISBN&#;.
- ^The Guardian, Volume 29. H. Harbaugh.
- ^ abGordon Geddes, Jane Griffiths (22 January ). Christian belief and practice. Heinemann. ISBN&#;.
- ^Samaan, Moses (9 April ).
"The Meaning of the Great Lent". Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California, and Hawaii. Retrieved 10 March
- ^"Lent: Daniel Fast Gains Popularity". HuffPost. Religion News Service. February 7, Retrieved December 30,
- ^Hinton, Carla (20 February ). "The Fast and the Faithful: Catholic parish in Oklahoma takes up Lenten discipline based on biblical Daniel's diet".
The Oklahoman. Retrieved 27 March
- ^McRoy, Anthony (). "How the Fast of Lent Gave Us Easter Eggs". Christianity Today. Retrieved 1 April
- ^ abD'Costa, Krystal. "Beyond Ishtar: The Tradition of Eggs at Easter". Scientific American.
Archived from the original on 28 March Retrieved 28 March
- ^Thompson, Kenneth (21 August ). Culture & Progress: Early Sociology of Culture, Volume 8. Routledge. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
- ^Snodgrass, Lucie L. (March ). "DYED IN Tradition". Academic Search Complete. No.&#; Vegetarian Times.
- ^Henry Ellis ().
Popular antiquities of Great Britain. p.&#; Retrieved 26 March
- ^Hallett, Vicky (March 31, ). "Egg-cellent art". Academic Search Complete. Vol.&#;, no.&#; U.S. News & World Report.
- ^"Gruß vom Osterhasen: Oschter Haws Song". Archived from the original on Retrieved
- ^Easter SymbolsArchived at the Wayback Machine from Lutheran Hour Ministries.
- Easter bunny coloring pages
- Easter bunny biography pdf
- Easter bunny tracker
- ^Holtzmann, Adolf (). Deutsche Mythologie. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner. p.&#;
- ^Grimm, Jacob (). Deutsche Mythologie. Göttingen: Dietrichsche Buchhandlung. pp.&#;–
- ^Elton, Charles Isaac (). Origins of English History.
London: Bernard Quaritch. pp.&#;–
- ^Charles J Billson ().Easter bunny biography Recent archaeological research appears to confirm the worship of Eostre in parts of England and Germany, with the hare as her main symbol. The idea that the witches of winter should be banished at Easter is a common European folk motif appearing in several festivities and rituals. As Easter neared, people would decorate them in celebration of the fast's approaching end, finally consuming the eggs on the holiday. The goddess's animal symbol was a rabbit , which have long traditionally stood for fertility due to their high reproduction rates.
Folk-Lore vol. 3 issue 4
- ^Christina Hole (). Easter and its Customs
- ^Attenborough, Sir David (Presenter) (April 12, ). Wildlife on One Easter Special Shadow of the Hare (Television). United Kingdom: BBC.
- ^Simpson, Jacqueline; Roud, Steve, eds. (). "hares".
Dictionary of English Folklore. Oxford University Press. ISBN&#;.
- ^Breathnach, Sarah Ben ().Easter bunny pictures to print Getty Images. If so, where does he live? There's even an Easter FAQ page , where you can find out more about everyone's favorite holiday figure. Like rabbits, eggs represented new life and fertility in pagan times, which is probably how the Easter fable of a warm-blooded, floppy-eared mammal laying eggs evolved.
Mrs. Sharp's Traditions.
- ^ Cricket. (magazine)
- ^ Krebs, H. (). Folk-Lore. p.
Accessed 2/28/08
External links
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