# Snopes gets a Easter Myth wrong **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 8, 2015, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145 "2015-04-08T18:28:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/21 "2015-04-10T17:28:47Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Hmmm…I copied the phrase “hare was considered sacred to Eastre” and plugged it into Google. The first hit was [http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess-ostara-easter-bunny.htm](http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess-ostara-easter-bunny.htm), and it states there: Ah, ancient goddess religions and the Celts; two subjects in which tiny kernels of fact are buried under heaping middens of woo. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/22 "2015-04-10T18:18:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > From your link: > > _While oft repeated that the hare was associated with the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eostre, and that pagan symbols were appropriated into the Christian tradition as the Easter Bunny, no primary sources support this myth. It seems to be a modern invention.[21]_ > wiki also lists many ways hares were prepared as a _traditional European_ dish. He was talking about rabbit holes. As the linked site confirms, but as I assumed you knew, a hare lives not in a hole but in a form. Hence the previous post. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/23 "2015-04-10T18:52:22Z")
I would argue that the more problematic issue with the Snopes article is that it doesn’t point out that Easter is only used in the English speaking world. In the rest of the world, the holiday is known as Pascha or a derivative thereof (for “the Passion”). And this part is just headslapping: > [@](#): > > It is not mere coincidence this most Christian of celebrations corresponds with the beginning of Spring: the deliberate linking of Son and sun is a motif throughout Christian literature. No, it _is_ mere coincidence that it corresponds with Spring. Easter’s date is set around Passover, not because its Springtime. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/24 "2015-04-10T23:50:06Z")
I’m calling bullshit on good, hardworking peasants not eating Lagomorphs. Bunnies grow fat on people and livestock food, then just sit there, chewing their shit and daring you to throw a rock at them. People need protein and have an appropriate attitude toward wise-ass critters below them on the food chain. I mean, what’s a guy supposed to poach, if not rabbits? His Lordship will notice missing deer, but not a hare here and there. Maybe the limits were really just for the priestly caste. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2015, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/25 "2015-04-11T07:28:41Z")
[This paper](http://www.academia.edu/1508229/Rabbit_Soup_in_pre-Norman_Britain_Hare_hunting_and_edibility_in_medieval_Britain) by [a Cardiff University PhD student](http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/welsh/contactsandpeople/researchpostgrads/lee-raye.html) does a good job of discussing the archaeological and literary evidence for the hunting and consumption of hares in England. As it explains, that evidence isn’t entirely straightforward. For the Anglo-Saxon period, hare bones in archaeological contexts in England are relatively rare and what little literary evidence there is supports the idea that there was some sort of taboo about eating them. But some hunting of them probably did take place. You can see how this could support the idea that hares had or had had some religious significance. But there are plenty of other possibilities apart from the hackneyed modern assumptions about Eastre/Eostre/Ostara. In particular, there is nothing to support the type of claims of which those on the [Goddess Gift website](http://www.goddessgift.com/goddess-myths/goddess-ostara-easter-bunny.htm) cited above by **Clothahump** are typical. The Anglo-Saxon evidence says nothing whatsoever about hare hunting being ritualised (even although it did become so later) or about it taking place at any particular time of year. Claims like that are just post-nineteenth-century bullshit. So yes, the whole Eastre/Eostre/Ostara theory does come down to the single Bede reference. That speculation can then be made to support that theory doesn’t really prove anything as lots of other speculation can just as easily be made against it. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2015, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/26 "2015-04-11T07:56:10Z")
> [@](#): > > It is not mere coincidence this most Christian of celebrations corresponds with the beginning of Spring: the deliberate linking of Son and sun is a motif throughout Christian literature. Right, pairings like “fils/soleil”, “hijo/sol” and “figlio/sun” are so universal a comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ac8455/32.png) [@Your\_Great\_Darsh\_Face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Your_Great_Darsh_Face)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2015, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/27 "2015-04-11T09:51:59Z")
Well, _huios_ and _helios_ are a little closer… ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2015, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145/28 "2015-04-11T14:46:27Z")
Yes, but it’s such an Anglo-centric approach, just like “Easter is really just an adaptation of Eostre”. Terms used in English cannot be used to explain a Christian concept that originated in the eastern Med, where Aramaic, Greek and Latin were the dominant languages and English hadn’t even evolved yet. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snopes-gets-a-easter-myth-wrong/717145.md?page=1)