Traditional Easter Carol
Eostre - Eastre _ Ostara - Oster - Easter - Goddess of Spring and Dawn
"Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain. wheat that in the dark earth many
days hath lain
"Love lives again that with the dead has been, Love is come again like wheat that
springeth green"
The Goddess of Spring Equinox, the dawn, beginning of the new day and the new season
becoming
one, has many variations of her names; one such name is easter, and has remained attached
to the
Christian festival. Other similarities include celebrating with eggs, and rabbits, chicks
and children
and the first flowers of Spring.
For the Anglo-Saxons, the month corresponding to April was called Estrermonath; in ancient
Germany it was Ostermonat, the month in which the Germanic tribes celebrated the festival
of the
goddess of spring. in his history of the English, the Venerable Bede tells us, "For
them (the English)
April was Eastermonth, which now is interpreted as the Pascal month, formerly names for
their
goddess, who was called Eostra and in whose honor was celebrated the feast that had that
name.."
Grimm, I, p289
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