A happy little bunny hopping around the garden hiding eggs while children carry baskets, desperately searching for a glint of foil covering chocolate delights….
Easter is an interesting celebration steeped in history and symbolism.
With only a few sleeps until the arrival of the Easter bunny, it’s time to brush up on your knowledge with some original stories and fun facts about Easter.
1. Easter is named after a goddess
Despite being a Christian holiday, Easter has its roots in paganism, with many historians believing that Easter is named after the Anglo-Saxon goddess Eastre or Eostre.
The Easter festivities in the northern hemisphere heralded the coming of spring, with Eastre being the goddess of spring and fertility.
2. Enter the Easter bunny
Bunnies carrying around eggs isn’t the most logical fairytale, but it does make children very excited!
The origin of the Easter bunny is also believed to be connected to the goddess, Eastre, whose symbols were the hare and the egg.
When you put those two together, and add some chocolate, you end up with a cute, fluffy bunny hiding colourful eggs on Easter morning.
3. One expensive egg
If there’s one egg you really want to find in your garden this Easter, it’s a Faberge egg.
The most expensive one to date was sold to an unidentified collector in 2014 for an estimated $33-million (R487-million).
The Russian Fabergé eggs consist of a collection of 50 lavishly decorated Easter eggs which were owned by the Russian royal family until the 1917 revolution, when they ended up in the hands of private collectors.
4. Add some paint
The tradition of painting Easter eggs is actually a Ukrainian tradition, which has been practiced for many generations as a way to reach out to gods and goddesses of health and fertility.
The traditional act of pysanka uses wax and dyes to decorate eggs, with the practice extending to the United States through Ukrainian immigrants.
5. That’s a big egg
Chocolate lovers out there would salivate at the sight of the world’s largest Easter egg, which was crafted in the coastal city of Miramar in 2019.
The ginormous chocolate egg was created by pastry chef, Walter Aragonés and 150 assistants who placed 850 chocolate pieces over a wooden structure.
It measured 10.5m in height and weighed 4 100kg.
6. Some Easter snacks
Alongside the delicious chocolate eggs and hot-cross buns, there’s not much else that one associates with Easter snacks. Unless you’re in Germany, of course!
The pretzel became a dominant food linked to Easter with the twisting of the pretzel said to resemble arms crossed in prayer.
7. Easter parade
There’s a long-held superstition that wearing new clothes on Easter will bring you good luck for the remainder of the year.
In America, this translated to upper-class New Yorkers wearing their finest Fifth Avenue garments to church on Sunday, followed by the less austere Easter Parade and Easter Bonnet Festival based in the city.
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