Like Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny is an iconic holiday image, one that has come to reflect the commercial aspects of the holiday. Little children are told that Easter eggs are brought by the Easter Bunny: “If you don’t behave, the Easter bunny won’t bring you any candy.” Folklorists cannot give a precise answer to the question of when this timid yet powerful (and prolific) rabbit came to be associated with Easter, but they point to a large and ancient body of European folklore in which the hare serves as a symbol of fertility, sexuality, springtime, the moon, and immortality.
Along with its association with Easter eggs, the bunny goes back several hundred years to obscure legends in Germany. There, the custom of making candy rabbits originated. Unlike eggs, there has never been any religious symbolism attached to Easter bunnies, although the Easter Bunny soon became to Easter what Santa Claus was to Christmas, a symbol of festivity and abundance, which encouraged adults to buy toys and candy for children. Both figures, of course, magically transported presents of toys or candy to children.
The Easter Bunny had its origins in pre-Christian fertility lore, as the Germanic hare and the rabbit were the most fertile animals known. They served as symbols of new life during the spring season, which represented rebirth and resurrection after the winter solstice. The mammals were symbols of the Anglo-Saxon spring goddess Eostre (or Ostara), the namesake of the festival of Easter.
Unlike Christmas, which is celebrated every year on December 25, the annual date of the Easter holiday changes because it depends on the phase of the moon. In earlier times, the hare has been a symbol for the moon while the rabbit has not; both mammals are related, but with certain distinct characteristics. Hares are born with their eyes open, for instance, and rabbits are born blind. The Egyptian name for the hare was un (“open” or “to open”) and the full moon watched open-eyed throughout the night. According to legend, the hare was thought to never close its eyes and to be a nocturnal creature like the moon.
The bunny as an Easter symbol was first mentioned in German writings in the 1500s. The earliest known references to the Easter hare come from a German book printed in 1572, and in a seventeenth-century German book the Easter hare is portrayed as a shy creature that lays eggs in secluded spots in the garden. However, this same book refers to the hare as an old fable, which suggests that the German Easter hare may date back even further than the seventeenth century. In any case, folklorists have determined that since at least the early nineteenth century German children have enjoyed special hare-shaped sweets made out of pastry and sugar. A German folk belief expands on the egg-bearing hare by claiming that the Easter hare lays only red eggs on Maundy Thursday, while on Holy Saturday, the night before Easter, the Easter hare lays eggs of various colors; both traditions are obviously mythical, since hares are mammals that do not lay eggs.
Two Easter bunnies in aprons carry a basket of eggs between them. Ancient symbols of fertility, sexuality, and springtime, rabbits have long been associated with Easter in northern Europe, and the Easter Bunny seems to have immigrated to America along with German settlers to Pennsylvania. (FPG/Getty Images)
In addition to the legends and customs concerning Easter hares that lay eggs and deliver candy, folklorists have recorded several European customs concerning the hunting and cooking of hares at Easter time. In the Pomerania region of Germany, old traditions suggested that people hunt hares at Easter time and make a communal meal out of their flesh. In England, there is the “Hallaton Hare-pie Scramble,” of unknown date of origin, when the local parish was granted a piece of land with a condition that each year on Easter Monday the rector must offer two hare pies, two dozen loaves of bread, and a quantity of ale to the townspeople.
The Easter bunny was introduced into American folklore by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 1700s. The arrival of the “oschter haws” (or “oster has”) was considered one of childhood’s greatest pleasures next to a visit from Christkindl on Christmas Eve. Children believed that if they were good, the “oschter haws” would lay a nest of colored eggs, so children would build their nest in a secluded place in the home, the barn, or the garden. Boys would use their caps and girls would provide their bonnets to make the nests. The use of elaborate Easter baskets came later as the tradition of the Easter Bunny spread throughout the country. In the nineteenth century, strengthened by new waves of German immigration, these legends and customs began to spread into the wider American population; by the 1890s, sweet shops in the eastern United States began to feature Easter candy in the shape of rabbits, and it quickly became a holiday staple along with special breads, cakes, and candies shaped like rabbits.
Other changes accompanied the Americanization process as German immigrants showed other ethnic American groups how to make Easter more sentimental and festive, traditions that still continue today. For example, Pennsylvania Dutch bakers often place an egg underneath the rabbit’s tail, which symbolizes the magical creature’s ability to lay eggs. In Fredericksburg, Texas, citizens continue to burn Easter fires on the eve of Easter, a custom brought there by German immigrants around 1846. Children are told that the fires are caused by the Easter Bunny, who is making his dyes for Easter eggs by burning wild flowers. In fact, it is children who keep the customs surrounding the Easter Bunny alive in the culture; they often take the initiative in making sure that these rites are observed in their families. As a result, this holiday has proved to be a very profitable one for candy makers and toy companies.
Pre-Christian springtime rituals, such as lighting bonfires and greeting the dawn on Easter morning, and fertility symbols like eggs and hares or bunnies continue in popular contemporary Easter practices. After the Easter Bunny became popular in the United States, the legends and customs associated with it began to establish themselves in Europe, especially in countries like England, which had not recognized the original Germanic hare. For example, English children today hope to receive sugar treats from the Easter Bunny. Legends and customs concerning the Easter hare also occur throughout central Europe. In Austria and Denmark, children search their gardens looking for special nests with eggs, pastry, and candy placed by the Easter hare, while in Luxembourg, children hope to catch a glimpse of the Easter hare who has just left behind its own candy eggs. In Switzerland, children receive chocolate and marzipan treats shaped like hares.
Easter Bunnies, both real and fake, feature heavily in popular culture, especially on seasonal cards and in films, like Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade (1948), and in early television shows, like the Charlie Brown Easter specials; NBC’s Kuklapolitan Easter Show (1955), in which Fran Allison hosts and Burr Tillstrom provides the puppet movement and voices for a program in which the Easter Bunny gives a tour of the Easter Bunny candy-making plant; or CBS’s The Bugs Bunny Easter Special (1977), in which Bugs Bunny seeks a replacement for a bedridden Easter rabbit. In 1978, CBS did attempt to explain the traditions of Easter, including how the Easter Bunny came into being, with the animated First Easter Rabbit.
In Easter Parade, Fred Astaire does a dance in a toyshop with plenty of toy bunnies on display; the first line of his song “Drum Crazy” is “A Bunny for my Honey,” and the bunny is the centerpiece of the song. At the end of the film, Judy Garland gives him a live rabbit that pops out of his top hat. Yet, Easter-themed specials, both in film and on television, do not have the same mass-market appeal as the proliferation of films and television specials produced annually for the Christmas market.
Bunnies have achieved a certain popularity and they feature quite prominently in Easter displays for candy ads, such as the Lindt Gold Bunny, which is advertised as the chocolate that makes the Easter tradition come alive, and in popular magazines, such as Martha Stewart Living (April 2014), which has a bunny on the cover sitting in an Easter basket with eggs and violets. Inside, there is another display of bunnies playing with an Easter basket, filled with miniature daffodils planted in clump moss, which is lined with a plastic pot so the flowers can be watered for preservation beyond the holiday.
Martin J. Manning
See also Easter Eggs; Santa Claus
Further Reading
Brunvand, Jan H., ed. 1996. American Folklore: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland.
Cohen, Hennig, and Tristram P. Coffin, eds. 1999. The Folklore of American Holidays. 3rd ed. Detroit: Gale.
Dues, Greg. 2000. Catholic Customs and Traditions: A Popular Guide. Rev. ed. Mystic, CT: Twenty-Third.
Gulevich, Tanya. 2002. Encyclopedia of Easter, Carnival, and Lent. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics.
Pleck, Elizabeth H. 2000. Celebrating the Family: Ethnicity, Consumer Culture, and Family Rituals. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.