Eostre is the name of a putative goddess of the Anglo-Saxons. The Venerable Bede described her worship as something which had already died out by the time he began writing the first significant history of the Anglo-Saxons. In recent years some historians have suggested that Bede may have made her up because there are no known references to her preceding his work. Others point out that Bede is known as "the Father of English history" precisely because he has long been the source for most of what little we know about pre-Christian English history.

Bede's account of Eostre

According to Bede (c. 672 - 735), writing in De Tempore Ratione ("On the Reckoning of Time"), Ch. xv, "The English months", the word is derived from Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, to whom the month answering to our April, and called Eostremonat, was dedicated;

"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 the Eostre-monath. 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 the Easter Bunny celebrations, 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.

Those who question Bede's account of a goddess have not suggested any alternative explanation for who or what the 'Eostre' in "Eostre's Month" might have been. The same lack of information which allows Bede's account to be questioned also makes it impossible to disprove, ultimately meaning that it

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 handed down in the German oral traditions Grimm was recording and he indicated that it was held to be the name of an old goddess, but no earlier texts stating this are known. Grimm suggested that the parallels between the names 'Eostre' and 'Ostara', months 'Eostremonat' and 'Ostaramanoth', and holidays 'Easter' and 'Ostern' implied a common origin.

As with Bede, there is no ancient textual proof of Grimm's assertions, but no evidence for an alternative explanation of what "Ostara's Month" might have referred to has been put forward, thus excluding either interpretation from the realm of factual account.

Etymology of Eostre

Many linguists agree 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 morning star Venus and *austrôn-, meaning "dawn".

Similar words, which it has been suggested are variations of Eostre's name, include Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Estre, Eostre, 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.

Speculative alternative etymologies

The word oestrogen is sometimes incorrectly believed to have been derived from Eostre. This almost certainly results from a train of thought involving the hormone oestrogen, human egg cells, Easter eggs and fertility.

However, oestrogen actually derives directly from the word oestrus. The meaning of oestrus comes directly from Greek language oistros, originally referring to a "gadfly"— specifically the gadfly that Hera sent to torment Io, who had been wooed and won in her heifer form by Zeus. Homer uses the word to describe the panic of the suitors in Odyssey book 22. The modern technical Latin meaning of estrus became more

Oestrus/oistros also meant "frenzy". Euripides uses it both to describe the madness of Orestes and that of Heracles. In x (line 1144), Heracles has murdered his own children and cries, 'Where did the madness seize me? Where did it destroy me?'

More to the point, Herodotus (Histories ch.93.1) uses oistros to describe the desire of fish to spawn.

Oestrus is an irrational drive: Plato, Laws, 854b:

“My good man, the evil force that now moves you and prompts you to go temple-robbing is neither of human origin nor of divine, but it is some impulse bred of old in men from ancient wrongs unexpiated, which courses round wreaking ruin; and it you must guard against with all your strength."

In the Republic, Plato again uses the word, to describe the soul "driven and drawn by the gadfly of desire".

The earliest English language sense is of "frenzied passion."

The name Eostre also bears some resemblance to the name Ishtar, 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.

Some of the most determined proponents of an Ishtar/Easter connection are not Neopagans but certain fundamentalist Christians, notably Ralph Woodrow, whose Babylonian Mystery Religion includes the Easter/Ishtar hypothesis and condemns the celebration's trappings as unChristian. This is 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. 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.

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); "it is reasonably certain that the New Testament contains no reference to a yearly celebration of the resurrection of Christ."

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. He equated the 'Eostur-monath' with April. Since the Spring Equinox falls on a single date in March rather than April some question the association. However, as Bede himself noted, the Anglo-Saxon calendar was based on a lunar cycle. Thus, the fourth month of 'Eostremonat' would actually have begun late in what we now call March and might thus have been associated with the equinox.

The association of Eostre with the Spring Equinox is important in neopagan belief as part of the Wheel of the Year. Neopagan celebrations of the Equinoxes involve goddesses from 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 is shown, with the accompanying text describing Mani both as a Goddess and as 'Eostre in her spring guise' .

Popular culture

Eostre plays a role in the novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

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'. Some Neo-pagans believe that she was sometimes depicted with a hare's head, though it is not possible to substantiate this belief as no known animal-headed deities appear in Germanic cult objects.

Reference

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia Geoffrey Bromley, ed.: 'Easter'

Eostre Ostara Ostare