History of the Easter Bunny

posted in: Holidays | 0

The Easter bunny is a popular Easter figure.

The Easter bunny is usually depicted as a rabbit who brings Easter eggs to children.

The idea of the Easter bunny originated with German Lutherans who was known as the “Easter Hare”.

The original role of the Easter Hare was to evaluate whether children had been good or bad at the start of the Eastertide {or Easter season}.

The hare was a popular motif in the church art of the Medieval Church.

Both rabbits, birds and eggs are fertility symbols of antiquity.

Often it was custom to refrain from eating eggs during Lent. The only way to keep them from being wasted was to boil or roast them. Dying eyes with certain flowers led to them changing colors, which is how the idea of dying eggs originated.

The custom of the Easter bunny and Easter eggs was first mentioned in 1682 in Georg Franck von Franckenau’s book  De ovis paschalibus {About Easter Eggs}.

Sometimes the Easter bunny is depicted as wearing clothes and other times as looking like a rabbit.

In legend, the creature carries colored eggs in his basket, candy, and sometimes also toys to the homes of children, and as such shows similarities to Santa Claus or the Christkind, as they both bring gifts to children on the night before their respective holidays.

As German immigrants arrived in the United States, they told their children stories of the Osterhase and the idea of an egg giving bunny had developed in the United States before the end of the 18th Century.

“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.”

What does the Easter bunny bring you?

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