Believe it or not, the Easter Bunny didn't start with a marketing meeting at a chocolate factory. It’s actually much weirder than that. Most of us just accept the fact that a giant, bipedal rabbit delivers colorful eggs to children once a year without asking the obvious question: why a rabbit? Rabbits don’t even lay eggs. If you’re trying to figure out how did the easter bunny get started, you have to look back at a messy mix of German folklore, 17th-century tax records, and some very confused medieval monks.
It’s a strange tale.
The story begins long before the United States was even a country. While many people assume the bunny is a purely modern invention to sell candy, its roots are tangled deep in the soil of Western Europe. Specifically, we’re looking at Germany. Back in the 1600s, people started talking about a creature called the "Oschter Haws" or Osterhase. This wasn't the cuddly, pastel-wearing character we see in malls today. The original Osterhase was more of a judge. Think of him like a spring-themed Santa Claus. He’d show up and decide if children had been well-behaved or disobedient throughout the Easter season. If they were good? They got colored eggs.
The German Roots of the Osterhase
To understand the jump from a German field to an American living room, we have to look at the Pennsylvania Dutch. In the 1700s, German immigrants arrived in Pennsylvania, bringing their "Osterhase" traditions with them. They told stories of a hare that laid nests of colored eggs. This is where it gets practical. Kids would build "nests" out of their hats or bonnets, tucking them away in the bushes or even in the cellar, hoping the rabbit would find them.
Eventually, the nests became baskets. The eggs became chocolate.
But why a rabbit in the first place? Some historians, like those at the University of Florida, point to the rabbit’s incredible ability to reproduce. In the ancient world, hares were symbols of fertility and new life. It makes sense. If you’re celebrating spring—the time when everything is coming back to life after a dead winter—a creature that can have several litters of babies in a single season is the perfect mascot.
How Did the Easter Bunny Get Started with Eggs?
This is the part that trips everyone up. Rabbits are mammals. They don't lay eggs. So how did these two symbols get fused together?
The egg itself has been a symbol of rebirth for millennia. Ancient Persians and Egyptians used to decorate eggs for their spring festivals. When Christianity spread through Europe, the egg took on a new meaning, representing the resurrection of Jesus. But there was also a very practical reason eggs became big at Easter: Lent.
Historically, the Church was much stricter about fasting during the 40 days of Lent. You couldn't eat meat, but you also couldn't eat "lacticinia," which included milk, cheese, and eggs. But here’s the problem: the chickens didn’t stop laying eggs just because it was Lent. By the time Easter Sunday rolled around, farmers had a massive surplus of eggs. They had to do something with them. They boiled them to preserve them, decorated them to mark the end of the penance, and gave them out as gifts.
The Osterhase basically became the delivery driver for this seasonal surplus.
The Mystery of Eostre
You’ve probably heard that the Easter Bunny comes from a pagan goddess named Eostre (or Ostara). This is a popular "fun fact" that gets shared every year on social media. But honestly? The evidence is pretty thin.
The only real historical mention of Eostre comes from a 7th-century monk named the Venerable Bede. He wrote that the month of April was named after a goddess who had feasts celebrated in her honor. That’s it. He never mentioned a bunny. He never mentioned eggs. The idea that Eostre turned a bird into a rabbit (which then laid eggs) is a much later addition to the myth, likely popularized in the 19th century by folklore enthusiasts like Jacob Grimm.
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Grimm—one of the brothers who wrote the famous fairy tales—was obsessed with finding the "German-ness" in every tradition. He’s the one who really pushed the link between the hare and the divine. While it's a cool story, it’s more of a Victorian-era romanticization than a hard historical fact.
From Hares to Chocolate: The American Evolution
The transition from a judge-like hare to a candy-giving bunny happened fast in the 19th century. As the Victorian era progressed, holidays became less about community ritual and more about the family unit. And children.
By the mid-1800s, American confectioners saw an opportunity. They started producing Easter-themed sweets. The first edible Easter bunnies were made in Germany during the early 1800s, crafted out of pastry and sugar. When these hit the U.S. market, they blew up. People loved the whimsy.
- Mass Production: After the Civil War, the manufacturing of sugar and chocolate became cheaper.
- The Greeting Card Boom: Companies like Hallmark began printing Easter cards featuring rabbits and eggs, cementing the visual image in the public consciousness.
- Retail Displays: Department stores realized that a "visit from the Easter Bunny" could drive foot traffic just as well as Santa did in December.
Interestingly, the "bunny" we know today is a bit of a biological downgrade. The original German Osterhase was a hare. Hares are larger, have longer ears, and are generally more wild and solitary. The American version became a "bunny"—a domestic rabbit. It was softer, cuter, and much easier to market to kids.
Misconceptions and Surprising Tidbits
Most people think the Easter Bunny is a universal Christian symbol. It’s not. In many parts of the world, other animals do the heavy lifting. In Switzerland, it’s often the cuckoo bird that brings the eggs. In parts of Westphalia, Germany, the Easter Fox gets the credit. If you go to Australia, you’ll find the "Easter Bilby." Australians have been trying to phase out the bunny because rabbits are an invasive species there that causes massive environmental damage.
There's also the weird medieval belief that hares were hermaphrodites. Medieval naturalists, including some church figures, believed that hares could reproduce without losing their virginity. Because of this, the hare occasionally appeared in medieval church art and manuscripts as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. It's a bit of a leap to say this is why we have the Easter Bunny, but it shows that the rabbit has been hanging around religious circles for a long time.
Why the Tradition Actually Stuck
Traditions don't survive unless they serve a purpose. The Easter Bunny stuck around because it bridged the gap between a solemn religious holiday and a celebration of spring's return. It gave parents a way to involve children in the festivities.
It also reflects a human desire to personify the seasons. We like having a character to represent the change in the world. Just as Father Winter or Santa represents the cold and the hearth, the Bunny represents the sudden, frantic energy of spring.
What you should do next:
If you’re looking to lean into the history this year, skip the plastic grass. It’s terrible for the environment and doesn't have any historical roots anyway. Instead, try making a "nest" out of natural materials like hay or twigs, similar to how the Pennsylvania Dutch did it. It’s a more tactile, authentic way to connect with the origins of the holiday.
You can also try "natural dyeing" your eggs. Before synthetic food coloring existed, people used onion skins (for gold/brown), beets (for pink), or red cabbage (for blue). It’s a bit of a science experiment and a history lesson rolled into one. When you see those deep, earthy colors, you get a much better sense of why this tradition felt so magical to people living in the 1700s.
The Easter Bunny is a weird, evolving mashup of biology, religious fasting, and immigrant folklore. It survived because it’s adaptable. It changed from a judge of character into a purveyor of marshmallow chicks, but at its core, it’s still just a way to celebrate the fact that the sun is finally coming back out.
Check your local historical society or a nearby "living history" farm. Many of them hold traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Easter events that show exactly how the Osterhase was celebrated before it became a multi-billion dollar industry. Seeing the transition from a simple egg in a hat to a basket full of plastic can give you a whole new perspective on how we create and maintain our cultural myths.
Don't just buy a bag of jellybeans. Take a moment to look at the folklore. It makes the chocolate taste a little more interesting.