How does the rabbit represent the spirit of Easter – spirit of paganism, or otherwise?

A rabbit that lays eggs?

Although this animal does not once appear in the Bible, various pagan stories about the rabbit weave and mix. The “Easter bunny” was originally a heavy fertility and rebirth stage.

Historically, what the story tells the world of the East-West connection is terribly vague. The tale tells of the goddess of spring and rebirth, Eostre, whose companion becomes a rabbit.

The legend has it that one year the goddess had arrived on the Earth so late that wintertime and frost were prolonged until the month of May. On arrival, she found a frozen, almost dying little bird. She felt really sad at this sight and transformed this bird into a rabbit, having given it fur to warm and henceforth live forever.

The story goes on to tell that this rabbit, still a bit birdlike, made those very eggs in honor of the goddess that had spared it once from death. Whenever the goddess arrived on Earth, the vernal equinox period was shown to bring along the spring, proving the rabbit would outline its joy to all.

The gift-bearing rabbit

The rabbit, flanked by that of eggs and Easter, merged into one back in the early 16th century in Germany. Records tell of children groping and scurrying to see what “Oschter Haws” did – namely, lay colored eggs in nests come Easter morn.

He would, in addition, learn whether children were naughty or nice and dole out some goodies-buyers the kids who were deemed good (a déjà vu to Santa Claus).

In the United States (where the only other spawn from the half-century-long commercial trivialization was “Oschter Haws”) the immigrant German population did little to put an end to the practice at the beginning of the 18th century. The remaining bit has already been smoothed out by globalization, mass culture, and the entertainment industry within recent decades. This is why the Easter Rabbit, or Easter Bunny, has become the most spotlight commercial symbol of Easter to date.

The rabbit plunged into or southern Germanic territories on first, where it surfaced in the last quarter of the 19th century; at the beginning of the 20th century, it then radiated out and was embraced by other regions-according to the greetings and Easter postcards of that time.