Easter is a springtime holiday celebrated by people around. Several people enjoy eating chocolate bunnies while painting or searching for eggs. Children will frequently throng to their neighborhood malls to meet and take pictures with the Easter Bunny, the largest rabbit of them all. But how did a huge bunny come to be one of the most well-known images associated with Easter? The top five justifications for using a rabbit to celebrate Easter are listed below!

1: The Modern Day Easter Bunny

Depending on where you live, you might observe Easter in a different way every year. While the Easter Bunny is a common part of celebrations, some other locations use various animals to give Easter treats. For instance, children receive colorful eggs from cuckoos in Switzerland, while people in Westphalia, Germany, think that the Easter fox exists.

Nonetheless, enormous anthropomorphic rabbits, stuffed animals in the shape of bunnies, and chocolate and marshmallow candy continue to be the most common ways to celebrate. Even the White House, where they presided over the traditional Easter Egg Roll with the President and First Lady, has welcomed one.

2: Sweet German Bunnies

In accordance with other Easter folklore, the famous white rabbit that we now recognize had its beginnings as a white hare in Germany in the 1500s. It was thought that the Easter Bunny would leave a nest full of vibrant eggs if a small child was very good. The youngsters used to use their caps or bonnets as nests for the eggs in the beginning, but these were eventually replaced by the now-familiar baskets.

German immigration to Pennsylvania in the eighteenth century brought the Easter Bunny custom to the country, where it quickly gained popularity. The first edible Easter Bunnies appeared in Germany in the 1800s. Initially, they were fashioned using pastry and sugar.

3: The First Easter Parades?

Since the Goddess Eostre was so significant in the spring, a month-long festival was held in her honor. The festival took place from the vernal equinox in March through most of April. Because both events took place in the same month and attracted many pagans to Christianity, many of the customs from the festival of Eostre were adopted into the celebrations of Christ’s Resurrection when Christianity reached the Anglo-Saxons. As a result, Eostre is where the English name of the Easter celebration comes from.

Rabbits (or hares) appear in this tale not only as a representation of Eostre but also because of their strong pagan association with the moon. The moon was thought to represent the hare, and the moon’s phases really decide the day we celebrate Easter each year. The Sunday following the Paschal moon, which is the first full moon following the Vernal Equinox, is when Easter is observed.

4: The Goddess and the Hare

The goddess Eostre was regarded as the spring goddess in Anglo-Saxon paganism. The egg and the rabbit served as her primary emblems. According to a myth, the goddess once discovered a wounded bird in the dead of winter and changed it into a hare to save its life. The hare could still lay eggs even when it was no longer a bird.

Indeed, the first Easter Bunnies were probably hares rather than rabbits. Although the reason for this transition from hare to rabbit is unknown, it is important to note that hares tend to be larger than rabbits. They resemble the modern Easter Bunny in that they frequently have larger legs and ears.

5：Spring + Fertility = Popular Easter Symbol

Rabbits and hares have stood in for springtime in general as well as Easter for millennia. Rabbits have long been seen as a representation of rebirth and fertility. This is due to the fact that rabbits are extremely prolific and have numerous litters per year. Rabbits have a 28–30 day gestation period, and a doe can become pregnant again mere hours after giving birth.

How did the Easter Bunny get associated with Easter?

In the 1500s, a white hare in Germany gave rise to the legendary white rabbit that we now know. The Easter Bunny was said to leave a nest full of vibrant eggs if a young child was very good.