The Real Easter

[Belacqua]

Ēostre

This is a popular Internet myth. It's false. The Christian holiday of Easter has nothing to do with Eostre. 

The ONLY reference to Eostre is in De temporum ratione, a book by Bede written in 725 AD. He mentions a month called Eostremonath (our April) and tells us it was named after a goddess. There are no other historical records of such a goddess. 

In a recent scholarly work, Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World: Eostre, Hreda and the Cult of Matrons, a British professor of history concludes that the name Eostre was mostly used as a place name, indicating that something is in the east. There may well have been a goddess of the same name, and Bede may have been correct to say that the month is named after her. (But note that just about everything else Bede claims in that book would be rejected by modern atheists.) Because Easter, already well established in Christianity, fell in that month, it became a kind of shorthand in that part of the world to call Easter after the month. Remember that in non-English-speaking parts of the world, the name of Easter sounds completely different -- Pâques in French, Pascua in Spanish, Pasqua in Italian.

Christians had been celebrating Easter for around 400 years before Christianity came to England. In all that time, the name had nothing to do with Eostre. 

The date of Easter is made to correspond with Passover. 

Rabbits are associated with Easter due to a German tradition -- rabbits reproduce in spring. Germans also have an Easter Fox, Easter Goose, and Easter Stork. Again, these were added to the Christian tradition long after the holiday had been established. 

Eggs are associated with Easter because when Lent ended people wanted to eat them -- they had extra because the hens had continued laying eggs throughout Lent. 

Once a myth like this gets established on the Internet it is very hard to counter. People want to believe it. 


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/071563...5d7f14b8b0

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...agan-roots