The Bones Beneath the Bunny

 

The Pagan Bones Beneath Our Sunday Best

You ever look at an Easter basket full of pastel eggs and chocolate bunnies and wonder what the hell any of it has to do with a man rising from the dead?

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

Let’s talk about how Christianity didn’t just spread across Europe—it colonized it, rebranded local gods, and turned seasonal celebrations into holy obligations. And while we’re at it, let’s give credit (finally) to the goddesses, groves, and grassroots traditions that came first.

The Lie We Swallowed with the Jellybeans

There’s a reason the word Easter doesn’t show up in the Bible. Not once.

Instead, the word likely comes from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon spring goddess mentioned only once by the 8th-century monk Bede, who claimed April (Eosturmonath) was named in her honor. That’s it. No surviving myths. No temples. Just one line—and yet, it was enough to spark a centuries-long cultural resurrection.

Enter Jacob Grimm, 19th-century folklore king and co-creator of the Grimm fairy tales. In 1835, he doubled down in Deutsche Mythologie, proposing a Germanic goddess named Ostara—a reconstructed dawn deity linked to light, renewal, and yep, bunnies. He had no hard proof, but the linguistic logic was there. His version stuck. And modern neo-pagans embraced her.

From Völvas to Virgins: What Christianity Erased

When Christianity hit Europe, it wasn’t a peaceful little glow-up. It was conquest in vestments.

• Charlemagne’s Saxon Wars saw mass executions for refusing baptism.
• Sacred groves and temples? Razed. Rebuilt as churches.
• Women in spiritual leadership—the völvas, healers, and wise women—were replaced by celibate male priests, then vilified as witches for holding onto old wisdom.
• Land was seized. Tithes demanded. Pagan festivals were renamed, retimed, and rewired to serve the Church’s calendar.

This wasn’t just about religion—it was a hostile takeover of culture, economics, and law.

The Vikings Saw the Angle (Saxon)

Even the Norse got the memo.

Once feared as seafaring pagans, Viking leaders like Harald Bluetooth and Olaf Tryggvason converted—because Christianity wasn’t just spiritual clout, it was a political cheat code. It gave them:

• Divine right to rule
• Written laws
• Access to Latin literacy, trade, and record-keeping

In short? Jesus came with infrastructure.

They traded in Thor’s hammer for the cross, and in doing so, reshaped Scandinavia’s power structure. Not because they were spiritually awakened—but because it made them kings instead of warlords.

Syncretism: The Art of Religious Rebranding

Christianity didn’t just destroy—sometimes, it absorbed.

• Yule became Christmas.
• Imbolc became Candlemas.
• Ostara became Easter.

Pagan symbols—eggs, hares, bonfires, maypoles—got laundered through sainthood and scripture. The result? A calendar that looks Christian but feels like something older, wilder, and more grounded in nature.

But let’s not romanticize it. This wasn’t harmonious blending. It was branding. The old gods were renamed, reframed, or buried.

Receipts from the Ruins

If you’re looking for actual historical receipts, they’re sparse—but telling:

• Matronae Austriahenae inscriptions in Roman Germania hint at spring goddesses linked to east/dawn worship.
• Bede’s De Temporum Ratione gives us the only written mention of Eostre.
• Philip Shaw calls the evidence for her real, but not widespread.
• Richard Sermon details how modern Pagans rebuilt Ostara out of scraps—filling in the gaps with seasonal relevance and spiritual resonance.

Which, let’s be real, is kind of beautiful. Sometimes folklore is resurrection.

So What?

So maybe next Easter, while dyeing eggs or explaining to your kid why a rabbit lays chocolate, take a second to remember:

There’s a goddess under that plastic grass.

There’s a forest where the church now stands.

There’s a version of history where spring meant more than salvation—it meant survival.

And if you’re like me—rooted in curiosity, rebellion, and a healthy suspicion of institutional narratives—this matters.

Because honoring what was stolen is how we reclaim what still lives.

Still curious? Here’s your unofficial reading list:

• Deutsche Mythologie – Jacob Grimm (1835)
• Pagan Goddesses in the Early Germanic World – Philip A. Shaw (2011)
• From Easter to Ostara: The Reinvention of a Pagan Goddess? – Richard Sermon (2008)
• The Reckoning of Time – Bede
• The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles – Ronald Hutton

Got thoughts? Rage? Rituals? Drop them in the comments or shoot me a message. Let’s talk about the bones beneath the bunny.