An Egg Laying Bunny?
Blame it on my wild imagination, trust in my parents, or the commitment not to ask questions when a basket full of candy and toys magically appeared each year on Easter. Still, I never stopped to ask why an egg-laying bunny was visiting my house each year on Easter’s Eve to leave a basket of goodies.
It’s strange enough that I never really wondered why a hare would visit my house, but stranger still that I never wondered why a rabbit would lay eggs or what it had to do with Jesus’ resurrection. I really didn’t begin to become curious about holiday traditions until I became a father. Admittedly, this interest was surface-level and came and went with the seasons of each holiday.
A New “Truth”?
It wasn’t until I was introduced to the view that the Easter Bunny was tied to an ancient pagan goddess that my interest in the subject deepened. As a follower of Christ, father, and pastor, I needed to know the truth. In my post, “Is The Easter Bunny Pagan?” I examine the claims of the Easter Bunny having origins in the worship of Ishtar. Below, we will focus on the actual and historical development of this mythical character, which has become part of many people’s Easter Celebrations.
The truth is far more historical—and far less sensational—than many online claims suggest.
The Historical Record
When we look past social media memes, YouTube theories, and the recycled claims of Hislop-style books, the actual historical record gives us a very different—and much more ordinary—story about where the Easter Bunny came from. There is no ancient text describing a hare laying eggs for a goddess, no Babylonian ritual involving bunnies, and no early Christian complaint about pagan hare symbolism infiltrating Easter worship. Instead, the story begins in medieval and early modern Europe, where real historical traditions gradually merged into the folklore we know today.
To understand where the Easter Bunny actually comes from, we need to trace three separate threads:
(1) the symbolic meaning of hares in medieval Europe,
(2) the rise of Easter egg customs, and
(3) the arrival of German immigrants in America who brought a unique tradition with them.
Let’s take them one at a time.
1. Hares Were Medieval Symbols of Fertility—Not Pagan Deities
In medieval Europe—especially in Germany, England, and the Low Countries—the hare and rabbit were well-known symbols of fertility and new life simply because of their rapid breeding cycles.[1] Medieval artwork, illuminated manuscripts, and even church carvings contain hares for this reason. But none of these uses were connected to the worship of a goddess named Ishtar, Eostre, or Semiramis.
In fact, as historian Ronald Hutton demonstrates, the only ancient reference to a goddess named “Eostre” comes from the 8th-century monk Bede, who mentioned a month named Ēosturmōnaþ in Anglo-Saxon England.[2] Bede never connected Eostre to a hare. No medieval writer does. No ancient writer does.
The idea that Eostre had a sacred hare was not introduced until the 19th century, when German folklorist Jacob Grimm speculated—without evidence—that hares might have been associated with her because of their fertility.[3] Scholars today view Grimm’s claim as imaginative reconstruction, not factual documentation.
So where does that leave us?
Hares symbolized springtime and new life—not pagan worship.
That cultural symbolism helped set the stage for the Easter Bunny, but it did not create it.
2. Easter Eggs Came From Christian Tradition—Not Pagan Myth
Long before a hare delivered eggs, Christians themselves used eggs during the Easter season.
By the Middle Ages, Christians across Europe observed Lenten fasting rules that prohibited eating eggs. Because hens kept laying anyway, households accumulated many eggs throughout Lent. When Easter arrived, Christians were finally free to eat them again—so eggs naturally became a symbol of joy, celebration, and resurrection.[4]
By the 1200s, we even find references to blessing Easter eggs in church services and giving them as gifts.[5] Over time, people began dyeing them red to symbolize the blood of Christ, and later in a variety of bright colors to symbolize springtime.
This means:
Easter eggs began as a Christian practice, not a pagan one.
Only later did folklore combine the egg tradition with the hare tradition.
3. The Easter Bunny Arrives: German Folklore and the “Osterhase”
The direct ancestor of the modern Easter Bunny is found in German folklore, not Babylonian myth.
Beginning in the 1600s—over a thousand years after the time of ancient Mesopotamia—German Protestants told stories of an “Osterhase” (“Easter hare”), a magical rabbit that delivered eggs to well-behaved children.[6] Much like Santa Claus, the hare functioned as a playful moral figure for children rather than a religious symbol for adults.
When German immigrants came to Pennsylvania in the 1700s, they brought the “Osterhase” tradition with them. American children who had never seen the German word began calling it the Easter Bunny instead.
From there, the tradition spread throughout the United States and eventually the English-speaking world. By the late 1800s:
- greeting cards showed the Easter Bunny,
- U.S. newspapers described egg-hunting traditions,
- candy makers introduced rabbit-shaped sweets, and
- children’s books cemented the bunny as a central Easter character.
No goddess.
No ancient ritual.
No pagan borrowing.
Just German folklore + Christian egg customs + cultural imagination.
So, Where Did the Easter Bunny Really Come From?
In summary:
- Not from Ishtar—her worship involved lions, not rabbits, and no ancient text connects her to hares or eggs.[7]
- Not from Eostre—the only ancient reference to her doesn’t mention animals at all.[8]
- Not from Babylon—there is no archaeological, textual, or historical evidence of a hare-based ritual in Mesopotamian religion.
Instead, the Easter Bunny arose from:
✔ Medieval hare symbolism (fertility/new life)
✔ Christian egg traditions tied to Lent and Easter
✔ 17th-century German folklore about the “Osterhase”
✔ German immigration to America, where the lore expanded
The Easter Bunny isn’t a leftover pagan deity—it’s a cheerful piece of European folklore that merged with Christian celebration and American childhood tradition.
It’s far from sacred, but it’s far from pagan myth too.
And like many cultural customs around holidays, it can be used or not used by Christian families with wisdom, discernment, and gospel-centered intentionality.
Easter: Fact, Fiction, Faith
This post is part of a larger series examining Easter through Scripture, history, and pastoral wisdom—addressing common questions, misconceptions, and conscience concerns.
Footnotes
[1] Karen M. Starkey, The Animal in Medieval Art (London: British Library, 2018), 112–115.
[2] Bede, The Reckoning of Time, trans. Faith Wallis (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999), 54.
[3] Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, vol. 1 (London: George Bell and Sons, 1883), 290–291.
[4] Bruce David Forbes, America’s Favorite Holidays: Candid Histories (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), 67–71.
[5] Anne E. Jordan, A History of Easter and Lent (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 44–46.
[6] Linda Watts, Encyclopedia of American Folklore (New York: Facts on File, 2007), 147.
[7] Tikva Frymer-Kensky, In the Wake of the Goddesses (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1992), 67–69.
[8] Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 180–183.
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