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 Fantasy: March 31, 2021 Issue [#10691] |
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Happy Spring everyone! I am happy to be this week's editor for a bit of fun and the magic of Easter! 
This week's topic was inspired by a young friend of mine asking about the Easter bunny laying eggs, when she knows they have live bunnies. She is crossing from the fantasy to the reality. 
There is a theory, hard to prove historically that the rabbit was a symbol used in the pagan tradition, the celebration of Eostre, which honoured the saxon goddess of fertility and spring. Truly rabbits suit the idea of fertility as they bear many live young. Still, no laying eggs.
Now egg decorating may have begun in the 13th c, when eggs were forbidden as a food during the church's Lent season. People would keep their eggs and decorate them to eat them for Easter celebrations. Still, no rabbit deliveries. 
In the 1700's German immigrants in Pennsylvania brought over their tradition of the Osterhase", a hare who laid colourful eggs to give to good children. Children would make nests for the eggs and come back to collect them. The Easter hare originally played a judge to ascertain behaviours of children at Eastertide.
Now this takes us back to the deeper goddess tradition relayed above... Ostara was a popular goddess in folklore as a spring time goddess. One story goes that her hare was originally a bird. There are several renditions: Ostara finding a frozen bird turned it to a rabbit, who kept the ability to lay eggs. Or Ostara had a bird who pulled her chariot across the sky but could not endure all the changes so was changed into this furry little creature who then became a symbol of fertility. In honour of its old bird existence, she allowed the bunny to lay eggs one day a year. 
