Eostre
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Eostre ("Easter") is the name of a putative goddess of the Anglo-Saxons. The Venerable Bede described her worship as having died out by the time he began writing (in Latin) the first significant history of the Anglo-Saxons. Some historians have suggested that she may have been invented by Bede, as there are no known references to her preceding his work.
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[edit] Bede's account of Eostre
According to Bede (c. 672 - 735), writing in De temporum ratione ("On the Reckoning of Time"), Ch. xv, "The English months" [1], the word "Easter" is derived from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month of Eosturmonath, corresponding to our April (Latin: Aprilis), was dedicated:
- "15. The English Months.
- "In olden time the English people -- for it did not seem fitting to me that I should speak of other nations' observance of the year and yet be silent about my own nation's -- calculated their months according to the course of the moon. Hence after the manner of the Hebrews and the Greeks, [the months] take their name from the moon, for the moon is called mona and the month monath.
- "The first month, which the Latins call January, is Giuli; Februrary is called Solmonath; March Hrethmonath; April, Eosturmonath; May Thrimilchi;..."
- "Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."
What is secure in Bede's passage is that the lunar month around the month of April in the Julian calendar was called Eostur. And as the Christian tradition of Easter, which has also fallen in April, arrived in some Germanic-speaking regions, the people named the then-unnamed Christian day after the festival, that is, in English as Easter, and in German as Ostern. It is alleged that remnants of Eostre's characteristics can also be found in Easter Bunny character, based on Jacob Grimm's research into connections between the 'Ostern Hare' and the Germanic Ostara, which he believed to be another name for the same goddess. However, this is speculative, as no evidence has been found for a pre-Christian association between Eostre and a rabbit or hare.
Those who question Bede's account of a goddess suggest that "the Anglo-Saxon Estor-monath meant simply 'the month of opening' or 'the month of beginnings'." (Stations of the Sun, Professor Ronald Hutton).
[edit] Eostre in Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie
In 1835, Jacob Grimm (1785 - 1863) published Deutsche Mythologie, a collection of German myths and oral histories, including extensive commentary on Ostara traditions in Germanic lands. Grimm suggested that various place names in the German Confederation were derived from Ostara's worship, noted the etymological connection between 'Eostre' and 'Ostara', and listed various traditions. Amongst these were the Ostern Hare, Ostara eggs, the Ostara sword, hilltop ceremonies at dawn, and other examples of traditions he believed to be derived from the past worship of Ostara.
The name Ostara was in fact a plural, referring (according to Grimm) to the multiple days of the festival. He proposes that it was also the name of a goddess, but no earlier texts stating this are known. Grimm suggested that the parallels between the names 'Eostre' and 'Ostara', months 'Eosturmonath' and 'Ostaramonath', and holidays 'Easter' and 'Ostern' implied a common origin.
As with Bede, there is no ancient textual proof of Grimm's assertions. Unlike Bede, Grimm presents himself not as a recorder of tradition, but as one who is trying to reconstruct it through inference. Grimm speculated that "This Ostarâ, like the AS. Eástre, must in the heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the Christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries." (Deutsche Mythologie).
[edit] Etymology of Eostre
Many linguists agree[1] that Eostre and Ostara are derived from the Old Teutonic root 'aew-s', 'illuminate, especially of daybreak' and closely related to (a)wes-ter- 'dawn servant', the dawn star Venus and *austrôn-, meaning "dawn".
Similar words, which it has been suggested are variations of Eostre's name, include Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Estre, Ester, Eoster, Eostra, Eastre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron, Aurora, and Ausos. There is no certain parallel to Eostre in Old Norse though Grimm speculates that a "spirit of light" named Austri from the Eddas might be related. Note that Bede appears to have Latinized the name of the second month from English Sun or Sunna to Sol (perhaps for the benefit of his Latin readers). He seems to have done the same sort of thing with the goddess and her fourth month festival (English Estre or Eastre into Eostre/Eostur).
[edit] Speculative alternative etymologies
The word oestrogen is sometimes incorrectly believed to have been derived from Eostre. A train of thought to this conclusion might involve the hormone oestrogen, human egg cells, Easter eggs, and fertility.
However, oestrogen actually derives directly from the greek word ’οιστρος (Latinized: oestrus), meaning rut or frenzy. See Oestrus.
The name Eostre also bears some resemblance to the name Ishtar (variant spelling: Eshtar), a Babylonian goddess. Other variants on Ishtar include Astarte and Ashtoreth. This resemblance has resulted in some Neopagans and Christians opposed to Easter believing that Easter is Ishtar's festival. (Fakelore is often constructed to support such speculative continuities.) There is, however, no evidence that Ishtar was ever worshipped in Europe, nor any strong evidence that the myths of the two goddesses were related.
The most determined proponents of an Ishtar/Easter connection are within Fundamentalist Christianity. One very notable former advocate, Ralph Woodrow, whose Babylonian Mystery Religion includes the Easter/Ishtar hypothesis and condemns the celebration's trappings as unchristian, has reversed his former position and now does not support this pagan connection. However, there are others who still do and provide a curious example of Christians and neopagans alike supporting theories of a continuity of Goddess worship in the absence of any conclusive evidence.
Jacob Grimm noted this similarity in names and speculated on a possible connection based on this and some minor similarities in rites attributed to the two goddesses[citation needed]. It is also sometimes suggested that a link between the two goddesses might have been made through Greek Aphrodite / Roman Venus. In support of this theory some cite that Indo-European '(a)wes-ter' and Semitic 'istrt', roots to which the two names were closely related, both referred to the planet Venus, which of course was also associated with the Roman goddess of the same name.
Alexander Hislop speculated in his book The Two Babylons that the invading Germanic tribes borrowed the Greek goddess Eos, who eventually became their Eostre.
A distracting apparent early reference to 'Easter' in the King James Version of the Bible translation of the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles 12:4, is simply an anachronistic mistranslation of the Greek pascha ("Passover"), in which the committee of James I of England followed such earlier translators as William Tyndale and Myles Coverdale. The Acts passage refers to the seven-day Passover festival (including the Feast of Unleavened Bread); "There is no trace of Easter celebration in the New Testament, though some would see an intimation of it in 1 Corinthians 5:7." (ISBE, Bromley).
[edit] Beliefs and practices associated with Eostre
Most modern sources describe Eostre's festival as a celebration of the Spring Equinox. Bede, however, never stated this. Eosturmonath is a lunar month, and as it starts with the new moon, can begin on a variety of possible dates.[2] Since the Spring Equinox falls on a single date in March, Eosturmonath cannot be associated directly with the Spring Equinox.
Eostre is also worshipped by some neopagans, who associate her with various aspects related to the renewal of life: spring, fertility and the hare (allegedly for its rapid and prolific reproduction). Modern worshippers and writers describe Eostre as a "Goddess of dawn" based on the etymological relationship between her name and the Anglo-Saxon word for 'dawn'.
The association of Eostre with the Spring Equinox is important in Wiccan belief as part of the Wheel of the Year. Wiccan celebrations of the Equinoxes involve goddesses and various other eclectic elements from distant and diverse cultures.
The belief that Eostre had hare's ears or a hare's head may well derive from Nigel Pennick's Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition in which an image of the Saxon moon god Mona from A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence[3] is shown, with the accompanying text describing Mani both as a goddess and as 'Eostre in her spring guise'.[4]
[edit] Popular culture
Eostre plays a role in the novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Bede, The Reckoning of Time, translated with introduction, notes and commentary by Faith Wallis. Liverpool University Press, 1988; 2nd ed. 2004. Translated Texts for Historians vol. 29.
- International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia Geoffrey Bromley, ed.: 'Easter'
