Easter and rabbits

At this time of year, any appearance of a rabbit in fi eld, along a road, or in a yard is sure bring the observation that the Easter Bunny is checking up on you.

The Easter Bunny is a long-established tradition in Western culture. The creature is a combination of a judge and gift-giver. As a judge, the rabbit determines which children are worthy of treats on Easter. Aa a gift-giver, it dispenses them to the good children.

But why a rabbit? When one thinks of the story of Easter, which is rooted in the death and resurrection of Jesus, there is no mention of a rabbit in the records.

There is a branch of thought, promoted by Jacob Grimm of Grimm’s Fairy Tale fame, that Child with St. Catherine and a Shepherd,” and places Mary with Jesus in a pasture. Unoffi cially, it is called “The Madonna and the Rabbit.”

There are other, older paintings with that theme.

The treat-giving rabbit tradition hopped from those paintings and into popular culture about 100 years later. It is pretty well documented that tales of the Easter Bunny (aka Osterhase) were told in the 1500s in Germany. Martin Luther is credited with telling the tale of how the Oster Haws (Easter Hare) brought candy and Easter eggs to children.

That story took hold of the imagination. With rabbits being active in the spring, when Easter comes, seeing a rabbit produced stories of the Easter Bunny checking up on people. As Germans migrated to new lands, the story came with them.

It was carried to England by Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She was the mother of Queen Victoria and established the tradition of Easter Egg hunts on palace grounds. What the monarch did was copied by the nation.

German immigrants brought the tradition of the Easter Bunny with them as they came to America. Today, it has spread throughout the world and is wellknown folklore imagery.

As you drive through the countryside in March and April, chances are you will see a rabbit. It is probably just another of the elements of living in country acres. Or, it might be the Easter Bunny checking up on you.

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the Easter Bunny comes from old German stories of a pagan goddess (Eostre) and rabbits. That, however, has never been proven, although connections with Christian traditions and themes do exist.

Those connections go back far into Christian history. The Greeks were using the rabbit with religious images in the fi rst millennium. Throughout early Christian history, there were paintings of a rabbit with Mary, the mother of Jesus. That originated because hares can conceive a second litter while still pregnant with a fi rst litter, producing a belief that hares, which were sometimes mistaken for rabbit, have miraculous births. Since tradition and belief teaches Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a virgin when Jesus was born, the connection was made between hares (rabbits) and Mary.

Titian, a 15th Century painter, has Mary holding a white rabbit. The painting is offi cially titled, “The Virgin and

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