Easter? ¿What kind of name is that Rabbits? Why the rabbits? Why the painted eggs? There are too many unexplainable things around Easter. So, just like the searching and inquiring creatures that have become the symbol of Anglo-Saxon Easter, we will jump, jump and enter the rabbit hole to discover the ancient mysteries of this peculiar festivity.
The origins of Easter
Easter, perhaps the most important date on the Christian calendar, is known in much of the world as the holiday that celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Lent, which is the period of 40 days until Easter Sunday, is a time of self-reflection that is supposed to reflect the time Jesus spent in the desert.
In the Hebrew Bible, the Jews refer to the Passover season as Passover, which symbolizes the liberation of the Hebrew people from the bondage of Egypt.
If we dig a little deeper, it seems that the first commemoration of this time of the year goes back much further back in time than modern religion. The Easter date falls at a key point in the solar calendar: the spring equinox, the moment when there are finally the same hours of light as of darkness. In the north, the arrival of spring was celebrated with great joy.
The hypothesis is that the first celebrations of spring began as an ancestral spiritual festival that honored the cycles of the earth and the moon, as well as the appearance of the first crops and flowers after the long winter. Without a doubt, there is something mystical and virtuous in the connection of Easter with the sun, the solar system and the flowering of life on our planet, do not you think?
Where does the name come from?
It is believed that the name given to Easter in the Anglo-Saxon countries, Easter, refers to Ostara (in ancient English, Eostre), a former pre-Christian goddess of spring and fertility. Bede the Venerable, an old monk with a long beard who was nicknamed "The Father of the History of England," wrote about her more than 1300 years ago. You are imagining Professor Dumbledore right now, why?
The Easter rabbit does not make much sense. Where does it come from?
It seems that the rabbit and the hare have their origin in a pagan ritual. It was known that they were especially fertile, so they were associated with the time of Easter rebirth. In German folklore the rabbit was related to the concept of the eternal life of Christian Easter, since they were born with open eyes and people believed that they had been awake all the time.
The Easter Bunny tradition was introduced to the United States by German settlers who arrived in Pennsylvania in the 18th century.
And of course, that's where the chocolate rabbits' tradition comes from nowadays. Currently, more than 90 million of these small chocolate animals are produced each year in the United States.
Why the eggs?
Let's see where the obsession with these oval objects comes from.
Like the Easter rabbit, the eggs represent the new life. In fact, the egg is in itself a symbol of the mystery of life. It has been the center of philosophical debates of famous scholars, such as Plutarch, who reflected on the famous dilemma "What came first, the chicken or the egg?".
The tradition of decorating eggs is part of the celebration of this concept of new life and, once again, it predates Christianity. It has its origin in the Nowruz , the ancestral Persian festival of the new year.
A few years later, in 1873, the chocolate Easter egg appears in the British industrial factories. Since then, people have gone crazy with these chocolate marvels. In 2011, the highest Easter egg in the world was made in Italy. With 7200 kg, it weighed more than an elephant and had a height of 10.39 meters.
There I leave you, with the thought of eating an oval and enormous construction of delicious chocolate. To enjoy!
About
Tags
Popular
