Folk-Lore
THE EASTER HARE.
THERE is a certain connection, perplexing and obscure, between the Christian Festival of Easter and the worship or sacrifice of hares. The evidences of such a connection are furnished chiefly by survivals in folk-custom, but these are so few and indistinct, so far at least as I have been able to trace them, that they seem only to raise a problem without contributing much to its solution.
The custom of eating the Easter hare is classed by Mr. Elton among those ceremonies which bear most openly the marks of their original paganism.[1] It is best known in Pomerania, where hares are caught at Easter-tide to provide a public meal.[2] In other parts of Germany there are traces of a similar tradition. Thus, the children in South Germany are told that a hare lays the Pasche eggs, and a nest is made for the hare to lay them in[3]; and it is customary in many parts of the country "to place a figure of the hare among the Easter eggs, when given as a present, either a hare in a basket of eggs, or a small figure of a hare in one of the fancy eggs".[4] The same object is common on Easter cards.[5]
- ↑ Origins of English History, 2nd ed., 1890, p. 390.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 391, note.
- ↑ Folk-lore Journal, vol. i, pp. 121-2; Holtzmann's Deutsche Mythologle (Holder), Leipzig, 1874, p. 141.
- ↑ Notes and Queries, 3rd Series, i., 473.
- ↑ Ibid., 8th Series, i, 475.
