Given that no eggs or rabbits appear in any of the Easter narratives in the gospels, most people assume they have to have pagan origins. Her attempt failed, and she was killed and changed into a piece of rotting… Such a drag.Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.“Getting history right is crucial, and noone – neither the religious nor the irreligious – should get a free ride when it comes to instrumentalising the past. Yes, there are a few genuine “virgin birth” and “dying and rising gods” stories and yes, they may have had some influence on the Jesus stories. So the Council of Nicea ruled that it should always be celebrated on a Sunday and seems to have ordered that it should fall on the Sunday following the first full moon after March 21. So around March in most of northern Europe hares can be seen in the fields “boxing” – with males competing for mates and females occasionally rebuffing males physically. Easter was originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex. Its rather like Robin Hood, which is likely a combination of various Medieval outlaws, guerillas and some ne’er-do-wells. Unless you bother to actually check on the sources of all these claims and find this is not clear at all. )I should also point out that if Eostur was indeed a festival at the full moon of Eosturmonath, it explains why there were multiple ‘feasts’ as Bede has it, since the full moon lasts for multiple days.Those who didn’t own hens probably had no eggs, my guess is Easter was the only time many had eggs.“It still doesn’t mean there is zero pagan connection to eggs, just that no evidence has been found.”Given that there is no evidence of any pagan origin and plenty of evidence that the tradition was related to Christian fasting, Occam’s Razor says the latter is most likely.Nice work here. One of the interesting things about having spent several decades tracking down crank pseudo history is how often I find these dumb ideas can all be traced back to single sources. Etymologically, “Brigit” is one of the Bri- names associated with hills. But you're right — when Enkidu is dying and in a fever-delirium, he at first irrationally blames the temple-harlot for his predicament, and heaps nasty curses upon her. As I note in my reply to Steve, it's true that there were Anglo-Saxon Christian missions into pagan continental Germania, so it's According to the German Wikipedia etymology for Ostern, there are regional differences in how the holiday has traditionally been referred to.Perhaps this north-south differentiation can be due to the influence of English missionaries, who most likely would have approached Germany from the north?Just a small note, German is not the only European language not to have a Pascha variant. So where did all this crap come from? If we go back six months from Winterfilleth, we get to Eosturmonath. While he was acting in this way, and holding this kind of discourse, he was constructing an apartment underground, into which, when it was completed, he withdrew, vanishing suddenly from the eyes of the Thracians, who greatly regretted his loss, and mourned over him as one dead. Of course, Robin was also just a really common name in Medieval Britain.For another reference to Eostre, there is Ecer in the the Aecerbot or “Field blessing”: Either way, there is no way “Erce” can be seen as a cognate with “Eostre”. I can only suggest you read this blog’s FAQ.At the end of the day, just go ahead and kill the messenger.Very good article on the whole — but the bit about the etymology of ‘Easter’ is a bit off, so I thought it might be worth weighing (I’m a Germanic philologist, so I maybe care more about the details of etymology than is strictly healthy or necessary).The feminine n-stem noun _ēastre_ (Proto-Germanic *austr-ōn-) really should mean something like ‘feminine one associated with the dawn’. “Easter is originally the celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babylonian goddess of fertility and sex.” Contrary to popular opinion, the idea that ancient deities were somehow the gods or goddesses “of” simple, particular things is far too simplistic. “Eggs and milk foods are forbidden to those who fast, for as much as they originate from animals that provide us with flesh … Again the Lenten fast is the most solemn of all, both because it is kept in imitation of Christ, and because it disposes us to celebrate devoutly the mysteries of our redemption.