Christina Hole (1896–1985) the noted folklorist wrote a number of books including: English Folk Heroes, (1948), A Mirror of Witchcraft ( 1957), and English Home Life 1500-1800 (1947).
Her renown was such that her opinion on the origins of the Easter bunny, while not original, lent credence to the popular assumption that 'The hare was the sacred beast of Eastre (or Eostre), a Saxon goddess of Spring and of the dawn'. Jacob Grimm had said a century earlier that 'The Easter Hare is unintelligible to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara'. Recently I have seen this same idea in print presented as fact.
And actually the evidence does not support this conclusion: The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore states '... there is no shred of evidence' that hares were sacred to Ēostre.'
This is not a joke: we don't really know how the Easter bunny got associated with origins of the Christian religion. Although, we do know that Christina Hole, always had a pet cat, because her obituary mentions it.
This is not a joke: we don't really know how the Easter bunny got associated with origins of the Christian religion. Although, we do know that Christina Hole, always had a pet cat, because her obituary mentions it.
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