Christian festival. But as to the very existence of this goddess, the opinions of mythologists are divided; for she is referred to only by Bede, and by him only in one passage, to explain the name "Esturmonath", given to April by the early English.[1] Not a trace of her existence is left among other Teutonic peoples; but as the Germans also speak of "Ostermoneth", whereas all surrounding nations use the Biblical "Pascha", Jacob Grimm gives the goddess a German name also, "Ostara", and labels her, upon etymological grounds, "the divinity of the radiant dawn, of upspringing light, a spectacle that brings joy and blessing, and whose meaning could easily be adapted to the resurrection day of the Christian God."[2]
In Holtzmann's German Mythology she is also referred to as the goddess of Dawn.[3] "The Easter Hare is unintelligible to me", he adds, "but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara."[4]
Oberle also concludes that the hare which lay the particoloured Easter eggs was sacred to the same goddess.[5] Among other authorities who have no doubts as to her
- ↑ "Antiqui Anglorum populi, gens mea .... apud eos Aprilis Esturmonath, qui nunc paschalis menses interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum, quae Eostra vocabitur et cui in illo festa celebrantur, nomen habuit; a cujus nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consento antiquae observationis vocabulo gaudia novae solemnitatis vocantes," (Beda, De temporum ratione, c. 13.) Cf. Grimm's Teutonic Mythology (Stallybrass, London, 1882), pp. 288-291, 616, 780-81, 1371, and 1520.
- ↑ Op. cit., 291.
- ↑ Holtzmann, Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 137-141.
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 141. He mentions (p. 138) that the goddess Freyja was worshipped by the Swedes and Danes under the name "Astrild" = Austr-hildis; "so that Ostara might be Freyja herself or her daughter." It may be noted that Freyja "was attended by hares as her train-bearers and light-bearers". Henderson, Notes on the Folk-lore of the Northern Counties of England., ed. Baring Gould, London, 1866, p. 170; F.-L. Journal, i, 89.
- ↑ Oberle, Ueberreste germanischen Heidentums in Christentum. Baden-Baden, 1883, p. 104.
