Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1900 — ORIGIN OF EASTER RABBITS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ORIGIN OF EASTER RABBITS.

According to Teutonic Tradition Bnnny Wat Once n Bird. One of the quaint and interesting features of our modern Easter carnival is the appearance in shop windows, side by side with the emblematic colored egg, of a pert tall-eared rabbit, and those who cannot understand why bunny should have a place in our Easter decorations shrug their shoulders and think it a trick to please the children. But the legend of the Easter rabbit is one of the oldest in mythology, and is mentioned in the early folk lore of South Germany. Originally, it appears, the rabbit was a bird, which the ancient Teutonic goddess Ostara—goddess of the east or of spring—transformed into a quadruped. For this reason the rabbit or hare is grateful, and in remembrance of its former condition as a bird and as a swift messenger of spring, and of the goddess whom it served, is üble to lay colored Easter eggs on her festival in the spring time, the colors illustrating the theory that when it was a bird the rabbit laid colored eggs, and an egg has always been a symbol of the resurrection* and therefore used as an illustration at Easter. In many parts of Germany it is a common custom for children to go to their godmother at Easter to receive colored eggs and a baked rabbit. Sometimes the children are sent to the garden to make a “rabbit’s nest” with straws and sticks, and in the morning they are sent to gather the wonderful colored eggs which the rabbit bad laid for them. And lliey ulways find them.