Happy Easter From Toffee Andersen

Easter is my very favorite holiday. So this year I thought I would find some little known and maybe for some, "alternative" facts, and share them with my readers.   I came across a perfect article written by The Purple Priestess (I don't know who she is but she seems well informed) and felt that in reprinting her article on Toffee Andersen, It would express my interest in learning more about the holiday we call EASTER.

 Easter falls on a different date each year. Have you ever wondered why that is? Technically, Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full Moon after the Vernal Equinox. Kind of a weird way to determine a holiday for a monotheistic religion, don’t you think? How did this method of reckoning Easter’s date come about? It was a way to steal the thunder from another popular god, whose cult was early Christianity’s biggest rival. The worship of Attis and Cybele was very popular in Rome as late as the 3rd century. Attis was a soter, or savior, god who was reborn each year. This resurrection was celebrated beginning on the Friday after the full moon after the Vernal equinox (now Good Friday). It culminated on the following Sunday - three days later. There were several soter gods who were very similar to Jesus in pre-Christian cultures. Attis (as mentioned previously), Adonis, Tammuz, Dammuzi, Dionysos, Marduk, Amun, Osiris and many others have a mythology that parallels that of Jesus. Since they were rivals, Christianity adopted the date for their soter and, once the Cybele cult faded, Christians had to keep the date since that was when everybody was used to celebrating the holiday.

Why eggs and why color them? 





 The egg has always been a symbol of fertility, creation and rebirth. Many ancient cultures’ creation myths involved the earth being hatched from an egg. Though other societies may not have had such a creation myth, they still held the egg as a symbol of new life. Not such a stretch, really, when you consider that every living thing begins as an egg. 











The ancient Babylonians and Egyptians exchanged colored eggs , usually red, in honor of spring. The Greeks and Romans adopted the custom, enlarging the color palette. In Medieval Europe, eggs were forbidden during Lent. This made eggs very popular at Easter. The Eastern Europeans have a history of creating beautifully colored and decorated eggs, entailing intricate designs with deep meanings. The Russians took this – and indeed, the entire celebration of Easter – to the extreme. Faberge eggs were first created as elaborate Easter gifts for the Russian royal family to give to friends.

 What’s up with the Easter Bunny? The rabbit was a symbol of the moon to the ancient Egyptians, that heavenly body being used to determine the date of the holiday may have had an influence. But the hare was a totemic animal of the goddess Eostre, symbolizing fertility for Spring. As anyone who has ever had rabbits or hares can attest, they are quite fitting for that symbolism. The character of an Easter Bunny seems to have begun in Germany, where he was a kind of Springtime Santa Claus, delivering Easter treats to children. He was known as Osterhase. The children would build a nest for him to leave their eggs in. This eventually became our modern Easter basket.

 

By Purple Priestess http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/30/1198128/-10-Things-You-Might-Not-Know-About-Easter-Including-One-Very-Weird-Factoid