Easter wouldn’t be the same without a bunny, egg hunts, and those festive baskets.
Turns out, many of these iconic symbols trace back to pagan rituals, Christian traditions, and 19th-century European folklore.
One theory about the origin of the Easter Bunny comes from a Brothers Grimm book on Dutch mythology.
“In it, he basically lays this out. He’s like, all these Germans have bunnies and eggs celebrating for Easter. I think it’s related to the goddess of Osterra, because supposedly, she at one point had a bird that pulled her chariot, and she changed the bird into a bunny. And once a year, that bunny remembers his past life and lays eggs.”
Rabbits have long symbolized renewal, and in ancient Rome, eggs were seen as a symbol of new life.