How was the Easter 🐣 bunny thought of with eggs 🥚 when eggs come from chickens 🐓 ?

[Counterclocking]

[purplepoppy]

In Europe the words for Easter either derive from the Latin Paschalis or the germanic Eostre as in the picture.

Eostre is supposedly a germanic page goddess who liked bunnies but that's debatable. Some say she's a modern invention others a 6th century Anglosaxon one created by bede in England. However since rabbits didn't exist in England at that time I have doubts.

The simple answer is the germans probably just wanted a bit of fun with their kids. They brought it to America, it caught on then was re exported to Europe.

[CupcakeTheDestroyer]

The traditions of the Easter “Bunny” and how it gave eggs to children is a muddling of the old pagan rituals that christianity adopted to convert a lot of norse and roman pantheon worshippers. Originally, the festival was meant to celebrate the new life of spring, in all forms, making it more or less a fertility festival. Bunnies are well-known for being able to make large fluffles of babies, and eggs are laid all the time with newborn chickens to grow. These were symbols of fertility that got a bit lost over the generations because obviously christianity wasn’t going to endorse a fertility festival and have sex outside of marriage, but this was after the early years of the dark ages, of course.

[AviatorTom]

The early Christians borrowed Easter from a much older pagan ritual of the start of Spring, where coloring eggs was considered a sign of fertility, and the warmer productive time ahead. If you want to convert someone to your belief, it's good to let them keep some of their belief, so eggs became associated with Easter.

[andreasderjuengere]

Never in history, hens had painted or decorated their eggs.

So it's only logic to hire someone else to do it. And I'd definitely prefer a bunny to paint my Easter eggs than -say- a swine :)

[FreyaRed]

European farmer cultures took egg as symbol of the Spring and fertility because chicken increase egg production when days become longer. Nomadic hunter and gatherer cultures which likely didn't have chicken picked bunnies as their symbol for Spring and fertility because reproduction cycle of hare starts at this time as well.