The Pagan History of Easter: From Ēostre to the Easter Bunny
- dthholland
- Apr 19
- 5 min read
While some today mark the resurrection of Christ during Easter, many more partake in egg hunts, chocolate bunnies, and toasted hot cross buns without ever stepping inside a church. But beneath the church services and family traditions lies a story that stretches far beyond the Gospels—a much older one that harks back to the dawn of civilisation.
In fact, Easter is less a purely Christian invention and more a cultural hybrid. While modern religion marks it as a sacred celebration of resurrection, the symbols we recognise today—rabbits, eggs, buns, and the timing of the festival itself—are all rooted in pre-Christian, pagan traditions. So how did this blending happen? And what were people really celebrating before Christianity ever took hold?
Spring Equinox: Nature’s Great Balance
Easter falls at a particularly symbolic point in the solar calendar: just after the spring equinox, when day and night are of equal length. This balance between light and darkness has long been celebrated as a time of renewal. Winter’s grip loosens, the soil warms, buds bloom, and life returns to the land.
For ancient communities, the arrival of spring wasn’t just welcome—it was essential. With it came food, fertility, and the reaffirmation that the world hadn’t been swallowed by the cold after all. It’s no coincidence that so many ancient myths from different civilisations involve death, darkness, and a miraculous return to life—many of them centred on spring.
Resurrection Before Christ: Ancient Myths of Rebirth
Among the earliest of these is the Sumerian tale of Inanna, also known as Ishtar, a goddess said to have descended into the underworld in search of her deceased lover. She was stripped of her garments and hung naked on a stake, killed, and later revived by the gods. She returned to Earth, bringing with her the promise of new life and light.
In ancient Egypt, the god Horus was born on what would later become Christmas Day. His wounded eye, restored after battle, became a symbol of healing and rebirth. His father Osiris was dismembered and resurrected by Isis in a myth that closely mirrors later Christian narratives.
Greek mythology gave us Dionysus, a divine child killed and dismembered by Titans but resurrected by his grandmother Rhea. He later rescued his mother from the underworld. In the Persian tradition, Mithras, born on 25 December, was a solar deity whose followers celebrated the spring equinox with rites of rebirth.
As late as the 4th century AD, the Roman cult of Sol Invictus, or “Unconquered Sun,” remained a serious rival to Christianity. Meanwhile, the cult of Cybele and Attis, which flourished on what is now Vatican Hill, celebrated a god born of a virgin who died and was resurrected in a three-day ritual each spring. The parallels to the Christian Easter narrative are striking, and early Christians clashed bitterly with these pagan groups over who held the “true” story of resurrection.
Christianity’s Pragmatic Embrace of Pagan Rites
Faced with such deeply rooted springtime festivals, the early Christian Church took a pragmatic approach: it adapted and reinterpreted. In doing so, it met people where they were—already celebrating rebirth, resurrection, and renewal.
The death of the “son” (or sun) on a cross—interpreted by some as a reference to the constellation of the Southern Cross—followed by resurrection after three days, was a motif familiar to ancient peoples. Christianity reimagined the myth within its theological framework. But it also retained key aspects of paganism: the lunar calendar, the seasonal symbolism, and the emphasis on triumph over death.
Why Easter Moves: A Pagan Calendar in Disguise
Unlike Christmas, which was fixed to the 25th of December, Easter is a movable feast. It is observed on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox—a formula that has no scriptural basis but is entirely aligned with pagan lunar-solar calendars.
This lunar calculation reflects ancient traditions that tracked time not by arbitrary dates, but by the heavens. That many churches today still hold “sunrise services” at Easter is an echo of solar worship, not a New Testament directive.
Ēostre and the Birth of the Easter Bunny
In English-speaking countries, the very name Easter reveals its pagan past. While most of Europe calls it Pascha, rooted in the Jewish Passover (Pesach), the Anglo-Saxon tradition refers back to Ēostre, or Ostara, a Germanic goddess of spring and dawn.
Writing in the 8th century, the monk Bede described her as a deity honoured during spring festivals, with the hare as her sacred animal. Though historical evidence is sparse, the survival of this imagery in modern Easter celebrations is difficult to ignore.
The Easter Bunny traces its roots to the Osterhase, a hare in German folklore that laid colourful eggs for well-behaved children. Brought to America by German immigrants in the 1700s, this tradition eventually softened into the now-familiar rabbit and became embedded in Western popular culture.
Eggs: From Fertility Symbol to Resurrection Metaphor
The egg, an ancient emblem of life and fertility, is one of the most enduring symbols of Easter. In many ancient cultures, it represented the cosmic egg or the rebirth of the Earth each spring.
As with many pagan symbols, Christianity reinterpreted the egg through its theological lens. The shell became a stand-in for Christ’s tomb, and the breaking of the egg represented his resurrection. During Lent, eggs were traditionally forbidden, so people would decorate them in preparation for the Easter feast. The tradition of painting and gifting eggs survives across Christian and secular communities alike.
By the late 1800s, confectionery companies like Cadbury began producing chocolate eggs, and the once-sacred fertility symbol became a seasonal staple of the capitalist calendar.
Hot Cross Buns: Sweet Remnants of a Sacred Cake
Today, hot cross buns are closely associated with Good Friday, their cross symbolising the crucifixion. But their origins are older and more complex.
Across ancient Europe, sweet buns marked with a cross were baked in honour of spring deities. In the Old Testament, there is mention of Israelites baking cakes for a goddess, to the dismay of religious leaders. Early Christian clergy similarly tried to outlaw these sacred cakes, but the custom proved too popular. In the end, rather than fight it, they simply blessed the bun. The cross—once a symbol of the four seasons or the phases of the moon—was redefined as the sign of Christ.
So, What Is Easter Really About?
At its heart, Easter is about rebirth. But that idea has many forms. Long before Christianity, spring festivals celebrated the return of light, life, and hope. The transition from winter’s death to spring’s renewal was marked with ritual, myth, and festivity.
Today, we see a split: secular culture celebrates the spring equinox, while religious culture honours the resurrection of Christ. But the line between them is blurry, and intentionally so. From its earliest days, Christianity found common ground with pagan beliefs in order to expand and endure. There is no Easter celebration in the New Testament, but early Church fathers embraced the symbolism and seasonality of pagan spring rites.
All the most recognisable elements of modern Easter—the bunnies, the eggs, the buns—come from pagan traditions. They are not add-ons; they are the very heart of the holiday’s origin. Whether you’re in church at dawn or elbow-deep in chocolate wrappers, you are participating in a ritual that goes back thousands of years, celebrating not just a story, but a season. And that season, above all, is about the eternal return of life.
