• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Easter: Origin of the Name and Associated Symbols

Wel Maypoles are obviously soooo phallic, :D There's no hiding it, is there.
We learned to dance round one when I was at junior school, which was a C of E small country school, but we always had a Maypole set up in the sports-field in the spring. :D It was fun, I wonder how many schools do that now? We would wear garlands on our hair, get tangled up, fall down, but eventually it looked cool.
 
It tends to be referred to as Ostara by 'modern' Pagans nowadays, and all Pagan fire festivals are related to moon phases etc rather than specific dates. There are four fire festivals: Yule, on the Winter solstice, around the 21st/22nd December; Ostara, Spring equinox, around 21st/22nd March; Midsummer, Summer solstice, around 21st/22nd June; Mabon, Autumn equinox, around 21st/22nd September.

There are also 4 other holidays which have set dates: Imbolc, 2nd February; Beltaine, 1st May; Lughnasadh, 1st August and Samhain, 31st October.

Here's some essays etc relating to the modern Pagan celebrations, if anyone's interested: http://www.witchvox.com/xholidays.html

And I think Ostara/Eostre has always been egg-related, hence estrogen and the phrase 'in eostre' meaning, ovulating.
 
Have merged two threads on the same topic - Emps' quote above is somewhat illuminating :).

All comes down to whether or not you believe the Bede, really...
 
Interesting to see how much has been tacked on afterwards to what he wrote too...
 
Ravenstone said:
Neither Christmas or Easter are invented festivals.

Anyway, Easter can't logically be pinned on a pagan festival. It's a moveable feast for starters, based on the lunar cycle, like Passover itself. And considering the only thing definite in the Gospels is that Christ died before Passover, it's reasonable to assume that Easter is a Christian re-badging of Passover than anything else.

Well, outside the tropics I would call "the start of spring" a fairly moveable feast. ;)

My understanding is that the point of the rather tortuous calculations required for Easter stem from a wish not to coincide with Passover - "no connection with the firm next door." If it was simply the anniversary of a particular date, which it purports to be, there'd be no need for any of that. Christmas falls on the same date every year, after all.

Ravenstone said:
As for Christmas, that's a date picked like any other. If Christmas were celebrated in the middle of June, no doubt it would take over another older festival. Christmas could theoretically have been placed anywhere in the calendar. However, why not stick it where everyone else is celebrating? So Christmas is the same as the Winter Solstice.

December 25th is the birthday of Sol Invictus, to whom I always raise a glass each year. The cult of Sol Invictus was Constantine the Great's first attempt at devising an official state religion which would unite his Empire; Christianity was Plan B and in his version Jesus is very much Sol Invictus Mark II. Of course when you see it as the festival of a solar deity - the Unconquered Sun - it's obviously appropriate to time it at or around the Winter Solstice, when the sun is "reborn" annually.

Christmas Day is alleged to be the anniversary of the actual historical date of the actual birth an actual human and/or divine being. Clearly the historical Jesus - assuming there was one - would have been born on some date, but there seems little reason to believe that anyone knows which one, or indeed that it matters.
 
I've never taken Christmas Day to be the actual anniversary of the actual date. Just a date picked to celebrate it.

I've got Purim down as yesterday, actually. Passover being some time in April this year, I think. Purim starts with a minor fast, I think.

It's amazing that if you Google for Purim or Passover, there's an awful lot of food recipe sites that come up! :D
 
Jarmaniac said:
December 25th is the birthday of Sol Invictus, to whom I always raise a glass each year. The cult of Sol Invictus was Constantine the Great's first attempt at devising an official state religion which would unite his Empire; Christianity was Plan B and in his version Jesus is very much Sol Invictus Mark II. Of course when you see it as the festival of a solar deity - the Unconquered Sun - it's obviously appropriate to time it at or around the Winter Solstice, when the sun is "reborn" annually.

Sort of. You may want to check these threads:

http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17511
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17435
 
Ravenstone said:
It's amazing that if you Google for Purim or Passover, there's an awful lot of food recipe sites that come up! :D

The nice old ladies from the Jewish Community Center would always bring my Ben, who was only slightly more Jewish than Mel Brooks :lol: , a plate of hamentaschen at Purim. After the women left he'd ask me "Want a vagina cookie?" :shock: (an old anthropology guy as well).

Certainly no spring fertility rituals there. :roll:
 
The Easter Bunny comes from hares, as someone stated, mainly 'cos it's about now that hares used to be seen 'boxing' as they get ready to breed. Because the leverets are born in the long grass and very rarely seen, country folk used to think that the leverets emerged from eggs. So there's one egg connection.

And the egg could also be seen to be symbolic of the sun.
 
Where do you get that idea about rabbits/hares coming from eggs? And is there really a sun/egg connection? The two are different shapes, after all...
 
JerryB said:
Where do you get that idea about rabbits/hares coming from eggs? And is there really a sun/egg connection? The two are different shapes, after all...

Not rabbits, just hares.

Hares are born in long grass in a depression known as a 'form'; a bit like a nest I suppose. Maybe that's where the connection comes in. I thought it was fairly common knowledge to be honest.
 
Ravenstone wrote:
Neither Christmas or Easter are invented festivals.
Just like to point out, it's not called Christmas anymore. It's the Winter Season Holiday. ;) I for one will be belting out "We wish you a merry winter season holiday" come December!
 
JerryB said:
And is there really a sun/egg connection? The two are different shapes, after all...

Well, the egg is round until it passes down the egg laying apparatus. It's the shape of the latter which determines its shape. Which is why you very rarely see a square egg.
 
I think, ( though it's been a long time since the ghastly year I worked for them ) that the JW's celebrate Jesus' birth ( apparently it has been worked out by them ) as being in September, or maybe it's July :roll: .( well, I wasn't paying much attention ) Apparently no-one would be wintering their goats or sheep out in December, over there, anyway, there was a lot of explanations as to why, and wow were they anti Christmas! :shock: I always thinks decorations in an office cheer the place up in that cold dark time, I wasn't even a allowed to put out a card I had recieved from a non JW employee. And when I automatically said ' merry christmas, ' when leaving the ofcice on Christams Eve ( they of course, were working Christmas Day ) the look I got could have laid me out.
Killjoys. I used to get a lovely Christmasy feeling, when I was younger, Yule and Christmas, holly and ivy, Christian and much older traditions mixed together. Where is the harm? A lovely old Vicar who ran the village Sunday school, used to say we should celebrate Christmas and Easter every day, inside us, which I thought was true ( if you are a Christian of course ) Dates don't matter.
 
The Yithian said:
Ravenstone said:
Neither Christmas or Easter are invented festivals.

Err...

Surely all festivals are invented.

Aw, picky, picky, picky....! :D

You know what I meant - I meant that they didn't part-ay then decide. "I know, we'll say that some saviour was born on this day; that way we get presents as well!" ;)
 
Lethe said:
I think, ( though it's been a long time since the ghastly year I worked for them ) that the JW's celebrate Jesus' birth ( apparently it has been worked out by them ) as being in September, or maybe it's July

Apparently, the most ironic thing about "Do they know it's Christmas?" was that, in Ethopia, December 25th is not Christmas Day. Or so I was told.
 
Ravenstone said:
Apparently, the most ironic thing about "Do they know it's Christmas?" was that, in Ethopia, December 25th is not Christmas Day. Or so I was told.

That sounds right. I'd imagine most Ethiopian Christians are part of the Coptic Orthodox tradtion, which would make 7 January when Christmas is celebrated.
 
Happy Crucifixion!

Bring three nails and I'll put you up for the night.
 
Pre-Christian spring festival, celebrating the end of winter and the birth of new life.
 
Is Easter, the word, in any way associated with 'east' or 'eastern'?

My orientation regarding this is unclear: perhaps the similarity is just occidental.

What is the general feeling on The Board regarding the Zeigeist-movie style 'deconstructed parable' assertion, that the son/sun/sonne "risen on the third day" is an a personification of solar archeoastronomy?
 
This weekend, I shall be mostly eating hot cross buns...
 
That's because the hare (not the rabbit, which didn't reach Britain until it was brought by the Romans) was a sacred animal of the Celtic goddess Eostre, who as has been mentioned above is also Astarte, Ishtar, Ashtaroth etc.
Some citizen science needed:

Citizen science: Rabbit and hare population mapped
By Helen Briggs BBC Environment Correspondent

Biologists are calling on the public to report sightings of rabbits and hares as part of a conservation effort.
The animals are easier to spot in spring when vegetation is low and the breeding season is under way.
Hares may be declining in parts of the UK, while rabbits have been hit by myxomatosis and other viral diseases, says the Mammal Society.

People are being asked to send in photographs of rabbits and hares to help map the UK population.
Dr Fiona Mathews, senior lecturer in mammalian biology and chair of the Mammal Society, said: "We have very poor information on rabbits and hares - and it's important to know if numbers are going up or down.
"They are part of the ecosystem and lots of other animals depend on them, either through grazing of their habitat or as a food source for foxes or birds of prey."

She said some parts of the UK had very low populations of rabbits and hares, particularly where there had been disease outbreaks. However, in other regions they have become so abundant they have become agricultural pests.

...

Derek Crawley, who is co-ordinating the atlas, said rabbits and hares can be distinguished by their gait and appearance.
"Hares are larger, have long limbs and lollop along whereas the rabbit has a bobbing gait," he said.
"The ears are also distinctive: those of hares are longer and have black tips."
Sightings of rabbits and hares, or their signs in the countryside, such as droppings and burrows, with any photographs taken, can be reported via the Mammal Tracker app, The Mammal Society website, or by posting information to The Mammal Society.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-32160617
 
This weekend, I shall be mostly eating hot cross buns...

The Hot Cross Bun is another pagan tradition hijacked by Christianity.

'The pagan Saxons would bake cross buns at the beginning of spring in honour of the goddess Eostre - most likely being the origin of the name Easter. The cross represented the rebirth of the world after winter and the four quarters of the moon, as well as the four seasons and the wheel of life'.
 
Wrong type of egg.

Easter-Egg-Facehugger.jpg
 
Back
Top