Honest follow up,I hope this is allowed: is the Easter bunny supposed to be giant? I'm from Germany where we've also got the Easter bunny but I never had it in my mind as being bigger than a usual rabbit.

Edit: hat/had. I know the difference, my phone doesn't I guess.

These sorts of questions always represent a tangle from which no satisfactory, concrete answer if likely to emerge. Because curiosity - much like nature - abhors a vacuum - folk explanations for a folk tradition often emerge as an additional expression of folklore. This is a normal process: the folk frequently perpetuate fraudulent etymologies and explanations for various things that lack a concrete explanation.

Numerous internet sites either quote or promote idle speculation on the part of Jacob Grimm regarding the origin of the Easter bunny. Grimm associated the creature and the tradition with a prehistoric goddess of spring, but the fact is, Grimm did not know this for certain and was likely only wondering. Unfortunately, many took his speculation as fact because of his prestige in the history of folklore and because a better explanation simply did not exist.

In other words, anyone who puts forward a "true" explanation of this tradition is either speculating or passing on someone else's speculation. It's possible to track the path of the tradition back to the late seventeenth century using written documents, but it seems clear that the tradition was well established by that time.

Two bits of speculation may be worth considering - as long as we keep them in perspective and remember that they are only speculation. First, it is not too difficult to imagine a popular link between the spring season and an animal like that rabbit, which was known for its remarkable fecundity. Spring is the season when things come back to life and rabbits are capable of producing a lot of life. They are also cute and cuddly so they filled a heartwarming role more than a spider or some insect that can produce thousands of offspring. So it is not difficult to imagine how the rabbit became associated with spring, but that does not satisfy the more important questions or when and why - specifically.

Then it's worth noting, also, that the egg is an impressive example of something that seems inanimate, from which life can spontaneously emerge. That, too, can be taken as a likely symbol of spring, the life-emerging season following the death-like slumber of winter. It was also easy enough to see that same idea being linked with the idea of the Resurrection - life emerging from an inanimate corpse. Again, this does not give us a good explanation of the when and the why. Nor do these thoughts, together with those on the rabbit (or how the rabbit actually BEGAN to lay eggs!!!!), explain why these two things became associated with spring - of Easter specifically - above other possible candidates. For that, one is not likely to find a reliable explanation because primary sources are apparently lacking (leaving the door open to the possibility of future research that will find the "smoking gun").

In short: we can't be sure, but don't look a gift-bunny in the mouth. Take the chocolate and run.

edit: just to note a source - the position taken above is basically the same as the ever-reliable Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud, A Dictionary of English Folklore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

Thanks to whomever for the gilding!

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