Draft:Easter, a Pagan ritual and festival

<!-- Important, do not remove this line before article has been created.The name “Easter” was derived from “Eostre,” “originally a Saxon word (Eostre), denoting a goddess of the Saxons, in honour of whom sacrifices were offered about the time of the Passover.” This very fact causes many to wonder if Easter is really a pagan holiday and if it should be celebrated by Christians. The origins of Easter are wrapped up in a celebration of seasonal renewal that has taken place in numerous cultures for thousands of years around the time of the Spring Equinox. Some argue that even the Christian version of Easter merely perpetuates a pagan age-old, familiar theme of resurrection rather than honoring an actual person or event in history. According to an ancient “Sumerian legend of Damuzi (Tammuz) and his wife Inanna (Ishtar), Tammuz dies, Ishtar is grief–stricken and follows him to the underworld.” Here, “‘naked and bowed low’ she is judged, killed, and then hung on display. In her absence, the earth loses its fertility, crops cease to grow and animals stop reproducing. Unless something is done, all life on earth will end.” Inanna is missing for three days after which her assistant seeks help from other gods. One of them goes “to the Underworld” gives Tammuz and Ishtar “the power to return to the earth as the light of the sun for six months.

After the six months are up, Tammuz returns to the underworld of the dead, remaining there for another six months, and Ishtar pursues him, prompting the water god to rescue them both. Thus, were the cycles of winter death and spring life.” Since references to this were discovered on tablets dating back to around 2500 BC Tammuz and Ishtar might be considered to be one of the first pagan Easter stories. Some Commentators have cited numerous reasons why cultures have chosen to celebrate Easter in some form. Popular themes have included:

1. Light conquering darkness; Barren winter giving way to spring birth 2. Life conquering death; Good vs. Evil

3. Virgin birth; Sacrifice

Often, these themes are regarded as part of recurring cycles, like the seasons. Every spring, the world comes back to life. Flowers emerge. Birdsong fills the air. Animals give birth to their young. Death always leads to new life. Some elements, such as the three-day timeline and the hero going to Hell, are also scattered among many Pagan traditions. All the fun things about Easter are pagan. Bunnies are a leftover from the pagan festival of Eostre. Hot cross buns are related to Israelites baking sweet buns for an idol, and religious leaders trying to put a stop to it. Eventually, defiant cake-baking pagan women were successful but, some say the cross was added to the buns to Christianize them, others that the cross represents the four seasons.

Today we eat chocolate bunnies and hunt for colorful eggs. The hare and egg are symbols associated with Eostre, representing the beginning of Springtime. In Germanic traditions, it is said that Ostara a.k.a. Eostre healed a wounded bird she found in the woods by changing it into a hare. Still partially a bird, the hare showed its gratitude to the goddess by laying eggs as gifts. There are many sacrificial heroes including Attis, lover of Cybele, both of them gods, but Attis was born of a virgin. Attis was Cybele’s lover, although some christian sources claim him to be her son. Attis fell in love with a mortal and chose to marry.

In response to Cybele’s rage, Attis fled to the nearby mountains where he gradually became insane, eventually committing suicide. She regained her sanity, and appealed to Zeus to never allow Attis’s corpse to decay. Every year, he would return to life during the yearly rebirth of vegetation; thus identifying Attis as an early dying-and-reviving god figure. Other gods associated with resurrection include Horus, Mithras, and Dionysus. Dionysus was a divine child, resurrected by his grandmother. Dionysus also brought his mum, Semele, back to life. The Sumerian goddess Inanna, or Ishtar, was hung naked on a stake and was subsequently resurrected and ascended from the underworld. Easter is a celebration of spring and new life. Eggs and flowers are rather obvious symbols of female fertility, but in European traditions, the bunny, with its amazing reproductive potential, is not far behind.

In European traditions, the Easter bunny is known as the Easter hare. The symbolism of the hare has had many tantalizing ritual and religious roles down through the years.

Hares were given ritual burials alongside humans during the Neolithic age in Europe. Archaeologists have interpreted this as a religious ritual, with hares representing rebirth.

Over a thousand years later, during the Iron Age, ritual burials for hares were common, and in 51 B.C.E., Julius Caesar mentioned that in Britain, hares were not eaten due to their religious significance. Caesar would likely have known that in the classical Greek tradition, hares were sacred to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Meanwhile, Aphrodite’s son Eros was often depicted carrying a hare as a symbol of unquenchable desire. It is in the folk traditions of England and Germany that the figure of the hare is specifically connected to Easter. Accounts from the 1600s in Germany describe children hunting for Easter eggs hidden by the Easter hare, much as in the United States today.

Written accounts from England around the same time also mention the Easter hare, particularly in terms of traditional Easter hare hunts and the eating of hare meat at Easter.

One tradition, known as the “Hare Pie Scramble,” was held at Hallaton, a village in Leicestershire, England. It involved eating a pie made with hare meat and people “scrambling” for a slice. In 1790, the local parson tried to stop the custom due to its pagan associations, but he was unsuccessful, and the custom continues in that village until this day. Recent archaeological research confirms the worship of Eostre in parts of England and Germany, with the hare as her main symbol. If you’ve noticed, the date of Easter changes every year and this is because it is governed by the phases of the moon and not a specific date on which Christ was said to have risen from the dead. It falls on the Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox making it a celebration of the seasons, a concept rooted in Pagan beliefs and tradition. The hot cross bun, that delicious Easter staple, is believed to have pagan origins. A part of the pagan celebrations of Ēostre, buns marked with a cross would be baked across pre-Christian Europe to celebrate the springtime goddess. The symbolism of the cross on the bun was said to represent the four seasons as well as the four primary phases of the moon. The bun was absorbed by Christianity and the meaning of its cross was adapted. Just like many of our other Christian-themed annual holidays and celebrations, the roots of Pancake Day lie in pre-Christian pagan times. So this year, before we crack the eggs and begin whisking in the flour, let’s journey back in time and uncover the surprising history of one of our sugariest traditions. Pancake Day always falls 47 days before Easter Sunday and so every year the date moves between February and the beginning of March. Pancake Day, also known as Shrove Tuesday, is a day when households up and down the country make pancakes and lather them with a variety of toppings, the most popular being lemon and sugar. 'Shrove' comes from the word 'shrive', meaning to confess one's sins and to be absolved. Anglo-Saxon Christians started this practice of being 'shriven' on Shrove Tuesday as the day came before Ash Wednesday. It allowed them to confess and be absolved of their sins before Lent began.

During the 40 days of Lent, Christians are encouraged to eat plainer food and avoid indulging themselves in sweet treats. And so, Shrove Tuesday became the perfect opportunity to scoff up all the rich food in the household before Ash Wednesday. The pancake was the ideal dish since it combined all those fatty ingredients and cleared out the cupboards in one fell swoop.

It’s not just us Brits who enjoy sugary treats on Shrove Tuesday. In France and other parts of the world, Pancake Day is known as Mardi Gras, which translates as 'Fat Tuesday'. The principles of the day are the same, an opportunity to eat plenty of fatty foods before making sacrifices for Lent. So now we know what Pancake Day is and why it’s marked in our Christian calendars, but the origins of the pancake itself go back to caveman times. Scientists have found evidence of 30,000-year-old grinding tools that suggest Stone Age people were making flour. Analysts suggest the flour could then have been mixed with water to make a batter, which was then baked on hot rocks. The prehistoric pancake!

In support of this theory are the stomach contents of a prehistoric iceman discovered in the Italian Alps in 1991. Otzi, as he is known, is believed to have walked this earth some 5,300 years ago. After scientists analysed his stomach contents they observed his last meal included red deer, ibex, ground einkorn wheat and charcoal. The charcoal and wheat combo might suggest he consumed the food in the form of a pancake cooked over a fire.

The next stop on the pancake history train takes us to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, both of whom were known to enjoy a pancake or two.

In an ancient Roman cookbook entitled De Re Coquinaria (‘On the subject of cooking’), the author, a man named Marcus Gavius Apicius, documents the first known recipe for pancakes.

Writing sometime during the 1st century AD, Apicius mentions a dish called 'ova spongia ex lacte' ('egg sponge with milk'). Although the recipe for this dish doesn't mention flour – a key ingredient in our modern pancakes – it is believed to be the earliest written example of a cake made in a pan, aka pancake!

Just like today, Apicius recommended it be consumed with something sweet, his main recommendation being honey.

The final stop on our batter-filled historical journey takes us to the period before Christianity had swept across Europe and absorbed the multitude of pagan festivals into the Christian faith.

For thousands of years, people from varying cultures have marked and celebrated the equinoxes and solstices (longest and shortest days of the year).

The pagan Celts, who lived across a large area from Britain and Ireland to northern France, held a festival known as ‘Imbolc' to herald spring. Early Slavic people from Eastern Europe held a similar week-long celebration to mark the end of winter and the coming of spring.

Symbolism was an important part of ancient paganism and this is where the pancake reappears. Springtime represented new life, light conquering darkness, rejuvenation and the promise of sunnier times ahead. The long cold nights of winter were soon to be behind them as the abundance of brighter days lay on the horizon.

Round, hot, freshly baked golden pancakes came to represent the sun and those who consumed them would be filled by the power and warmth of the sun itself.

As Christianity engulfed, merged and adapted the pagan traditions, the humble pancake got swept along as well. Instead of representing the sun, the pancake became the perfect food on which to gorge and overindulge before Lent.

So, this Shrove Tuesday as you smother your pancake with your favourite toppings, remind yourself that whilst the pancake you're about to eat might only be a few minutes old, its ancestors were filling the stomachs of early man thousands of years ago. -->