BUNNY LORE. Have you ever been curious to know where the Easter Bunny came from or how the tradition got started of equating a rabbit with the Easter holiday? Well, the Farmers’ Almanac has the answers.

In 16th century literature, there are accounts of a bunny who would visit the populous each spring and reward those who had been good through winter with eggs. Prior to the Christian holiday of Easter, the hare/rabbit showed up often in pre-Christian fertility lore, serving as symbols of new life during the emerging spring season. In German mythology, there was a goddess named Eostra, who was the goddess of spring and fertility. She held the symbol of the rabbit due to its high reproduction rate. And eggs were an ancient symbol of fertility as well.

So it seems that pre-Christian Germanic lore surrounding spring fell into the melting pot and when Christianity was introduced to the region, the goddess Eostra was no longer celebrated. However her symbol of fertility, the bunny, meshed well with the Easter holiday and is still celebrated today.

German children who arrived with settlers to America in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1700s thoroughly enjoyed visits from the bunny in spring which they called “Oschter Haws,” almost as much as they enjoyed the visit from Christ-Kindel on Christmas Eve. The German children believed if they behaved between Christmas and spring that the Oschter Haws (or Easter Bunny) would lay a nest of colored eggs while they slept.

Although the origins of the tradition of the Easter Bunny aren’t crystal clear, Germany has been credited with the early equation of associating a bunny with the Easter holiday. For more information about the Easter holiday, visit https://www.farmersalmanac.com/