I have, once more, emerged from the depths of the internet for the yearly bunny post!
However, even after a long thought about it… I couldn’t really find any bunny facts anymore I hadn’t already talked about in the last few years. I’ve covered breeds, health facts, cool facts, famous bunnies… I’m basically all out of info.
So, as a last resort, I present you the reason why we worship the bunnies every year at this time (as we should)!
It’s a bit unclear where the “Easter bunny” stems from, but it may have been because of pagan tradition. There is a “festival of Eostre”, who is a goddess whose animal symbol is a bunny. Now I’m not pagan, but that seems like a smart goddess to me!
Even cooler is the fact that the Easter bunny came to the US from Germany - the country I’m from! In the 1700s, German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania and brought the tradition of the “Osterhase” with them. The children of the immigrants made nests in which the Easter bunny could then lay its colored eggs and even left out carrots in case the bunny got hungry - sort of like Santa gets cookies and milk.
But how did the Easter bunny start to exist in Germany? The first mention of the Easter bunny in writing is from around 1682, from a doctor called Johannes Richter, who wrote a thesis about easter eggs. Said thesis mentioned that in certain German regions, the children were told that a rabbit laid eggs and was hiding them in the gardens for the children to find. How that story came to be is difficult to say, but there are four theories:
- Someone was trying to bake an Easter bread in the form of a lamb, but in the end, it came out looking like a bunny. Why this spread is not clear, but it is possible that the Easter bunny developed from the Easter lamb.
- Another story again references the Easter bread. In the middle ages, colored eggs were apparently baked into the bread and a picture of a hare was imprinted on it. That’s how the idea that the Easter bunny was laying eggs might have come to be. No wonder a round bunny is called a “loaf” - they are very much like bread.
- Then there’s the legend that in spring, wild hares were looking for food in human settlements. Rabbits are some of the earliest animals to be seen again after winter, so this may be the reason why they got associated with food and spring.
- And of course there is the religious reason of the “Dreihasenbild” (“Three rabbit picture”), which is a Christian picture of three rabbits, with the rabbits “sharing” ears so that there are just three ears in total, symbolizing the holy trinity. The picture is likely from the middle ages as well, so the bunny and Christianity are linked since a long, long time.
Whatever the reason may be, though - it’s great that we are worshipping the cutest of all animals once a year (as it should be)! But always remember: Don’t ever gift someone a real bunny for Easter! Stick with the chocolate ones!
And with that, I am all out of bunny facts for real. Not sure what to post next year, but I have some time to think about it. If all fails, I’ll just post a bunch of cute gifs.
Happy Easter, everyone! Be nice to the bunnies or the bunnies will take all your eggs away again! 
(Oh, and totally unrelated: I’m playing the game again since two months, so if any of my old friends are still here, speak up. 
)
And is actually still playing the game, of course!