Anyone know How the Easter Bunny Came to Be?

[Nyboy]

How does a rabbit fit into Easter? It would have made more sense if it was a Easter Duck or Easter Chicken at least they lay eggs.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

I guess that it's another one of those things with deep cultural roots that we tend to take for granted. It supposedly goes back to German Lutherans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Bunny

 

[Nyboy]

That was very interesting reading. Eggs and rabbits are symbols for fertility.

 

[TReeves]

I can answer this one! In Europe the Easter rabbit brings colored eggs to children who have been good during the Lenten season. The more eggs the child/family gets the better their crops and blessing will be for the year. In many European cities there is an Easter Egg tree over the towns wells and fountains it is to help promote a good harvest for the year. Pretty much everyone decorates a tree outside their homes with eggs. This is all done as an enticement to the rabbit. It has its origins in old Germanic customs and when the Luthern/Catholic church became prominent they incorporated those beliefs in (much like Halloween).
Here's an example from Rothenburg,Germany (I lived 1.5 hours from there by train)

 

[PhilaGardener]

I can tell you that I recently started seeing my local rabbits checking out the new greenery in my garden.
We all are spending more time out and about after a long winter!

 

[Nyboy]

@TReeves thats interesting growing up a family on our block would hang plastic eggs on a evergreen tree every Easter.

 

[digitS']

I ain't got no interest in no bunny that eats veggies b4 I do ... but if he pays with eggs!

Everywhere people have customs and celebrations. Those might be as simple as requiring the children to race around the city cathedral 3 times on the risk of being spanked, and receiving a reward for finishing. When these events become widespread and national, oftentimes some of the original meaning is lost. Like when the children from the nearby town show up for the run around the church and are met with fisticuffs by the local kids who don't want to share the treats.

Something like Halloween takes some imagination after the zombification of the event in some places. It isn't sufficient to say something about it being the evening of All Hallows Day. That it predates Christianity doesn't explain Halloween. What was it all about? What were these folks up to at that time of the year?

An explanation which makes the most sense to me is that people throughout Europe were returning to winter villages after the seasons spent pasturing their herds and flocks, elsewhere. It was a time for celebrating as families and neighbors were reunited.

A generational event, as most all of these things are, the grandparents may well have remained in the villages through the months while the livestock was pushed up to good pasture. Treats for the returning kids! What could be better and more appropriate?

But at the start of the growing season ...


Steve

 

[so lucky]

Nothing like making the well-being of the family dependent on the kids' good behavior. Childhood stress apparently originated in Europe during Lent.

 

[Nyboy]

 

[TReeves]

I'm nit sure this is widely practiced anymore. Especially in the North and West of Germany. In Southern and parts of Eastern Germany it's still very widespread. But, that is where many of the crops are grown and for some reason it seems they are more about customs. Just an observation.
For example married people wear their wedding bands on their right hands. DH and I wear ours on the left. After getting a hotel room (via the internet while on vacation) with our children in tow were turned away because they thought we were not married. After that we bought rings to wear on our right hands when we would travel. It wasn't like that everywhere.