Edit of April 8, 2023: On the occasion of the Easter holidays, this weekend, we offer you the rereading of this article.
Easter rhymes with chocolates. Nearly 15,000 tonnes were sold during this period, according to figures from the chocolate syndicate. For several years, a figure seems to have imposed itself in the universe of subjects: the rabbit.
But if we know where the bells and the chocolate eggs come from, we wonder about the presence of this – certainly friendly – rabbit. Who of the bells, rabbits or cocottes is really in charge of delivering the chocolate eggs? 20 minutes conducted the survey and traditions vary by country.
Easter eggs, not very Catholic
To understand the origins of the Easter bunny, we must start by talking about eggs. The egg is a pagan symbol of fertility, life and rebirth. In Antiquity, Egyptians, Persians and Romans already offered painted eggs. In Gaul, the druids dyed them red in honor of the sun.
The egg is also found in the Jewish religion. AT Passoverthe Jews commemorate the exit of the Hebrew people from Egypt and on the plate of the evening of the Seder, it recalls the mourning of the destruction of the Temple.
In the Christian tradition, eggs are forbidden during Lent. In the Middle Ages they were kept to be decorated and offered at Easter because Christians found the egg to be the perfect symbol of Christ’s resurrection. Originally it was a simple chicken egg, in the 18th century it was emptied and filled with liquid chocolate. The chocolate egg as we know it appears with the development of molding at the end of the Second Empire, associated with the hen or the chick, in the form of a chocolate subject. “The chocolate egg remains the most popular subject among craftsmen,” says Sylvie Collin, general secretary of the confederation of chocolatiers-confectioners
The bells, real clam frogs
In countries with an Orthodox tradition such as Russia or Greece, during the family meal on Holy Saturday, everyone chooses a decorated egg: two by two, each knocks his egg against that of his neighbor on the left, the last one who keeps his egg intact. won.
Among Catholics, from Holy Thursday, which marks the beginning of the Passion of Jesus Christ, the bells are condemned to silence for three days as a sign of mourning. In France, Belgium and Spain, it is customary to tell children that the bells go to Rome to be blessed. When they return, on Easter Sunday, they come back laden with chocolate candies which they drop in the garden. And toddlers are happy to look for eggs, chickens, bells, but also rabbits!
The Easter Bunny is a pagan Teuton
In Germany, Austria, Sweden, Switzerland and Alsace Moselle, Easter eggs are brought by the Easter hare (Osterhase). In pre-Christian Germany, the Teutons revered Eostre, goddess of spring and fertility, whose symbol was the rabbit. Eostre will also give its name to Easter in German (“Ostern”) and in English (“Easter”).
Another German legend says that a woman hid decorated eggs in her garden for her children. These, seeing a hare, believed that it had laid the latter. In Bavaria, the hare is replaced by a rooster, in Thuringia and Westphalia by a fox, in the region of Hanover by a cuckoo, and in the Tyrol by a hen.
The German hare also crossed the Atlantic thanks to the eight million German immigrants who settled in the New World from 1680 to the 1900s. eggs in the garden.
The Easter bunny also galloped to Brazil, thanks to the German-Swiss immigration started by the King of Portugal in 1818, and continued from 1824 by the wife of the first Emperor of Brazil, the Austrian Archduchess Maria Leopoldine of Austria. .
In Italy, during the Easter period, there are also friendly rabbits that carry eggs, this is precisely of a mountain hare, which for Saint Ambrose evoked the Resurrection because it has the particularity of changing coat and color in spring.
The Easter bunny doesn’t just have friends
But the Easter Bunny has not been emulated everywhere. In a very Catholic Mexico, celebrating Easter with chocolate and bunnies is not very popular, much of Holy Week is observed there. Fighting against the proliferation of rabbits that are wreaking havoc on the continent, Australians are trying to replace the Easter bunny with the Easter Bilby, a small marsupial threatened with extinction.
According to a Finnish legend, witches (“ Virpominen ”) and the trolls are out between Good Friday and Easter Day. So, disguised as witches, the children ring the neighbors’ doorbell to receive treats.
In Portugal, on Palm Sunday, the godchildren offer a sprig of olive tree to their godfather and a bouquet of violets to their godmother, in exchange, on Easter Sunday, the godparents offer their godchildren a Folar, a kind of brioche, a symbol of reconciliation and friendship. The Easter bunny, of German origin, has therefore been adopted almost everywhere, but it has not yet dug its burrow all over the world.