Origins of Easter: Ostara & Alban Eilir
How to Celebrate the Spring Equinox like the Pagans, Druids & Wiccans
On March 20, 2023, we welcome a new Spring Equinox. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Spring Equinox typically falls between March 19-March 22. It marks the point when the sun’s rays hit the equator directly, making the days and nights equal. The precise moment that marks the start of spring occurs when the sun perfectly aligns with the celestial equator, known as it’s zenith.
The Spring Equinox was celebrated in many cultures, often honoring a Goddess according to their tradition. Spring Goddesses include Aphrodite of Cyprus, the Norse goddess Idun, Hathor of Egypt, and Ostara in Scandinavia. Public festivals were once held in ancient Rome by an order of priests who honored Mars known as the Salii. In Babylonia, a spring festival called Akitu, celebrating the escape of the god Marduk from his imprisonment and his marriage to the Earth Goddess Ishtar.
For creative ways you can get into the spirit of the season, read my article here.
Ostara
One of the eight major sabbats celebrated in Wiccan-influenced forms of Neopaganism, Ostara marks the Spring Equinox. Ostara is an ancient pagan celebration to honor the West Germanic goddess of spring, Ēostre. The goddess was first recounted by Bede, an English monk known as the Father of English History, in the 7th & 8th Centuries in his De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time).
Ostara is a time to honor the warmth and light of the sun, the balance of light and dark, and the Earth’s awakening. As a marker of rebirth and renewal, Ostara is the time plant seeds for the future, both literally and figuratively. As the days grow warmer, not only can we plant seeds in our gardens in anticipation of a coming harvest, we can also plant the metaphorical seeds of goals or intentions that we may have set during colder and darker months.
Alban Eilir
The Druids celebrated the Spring Equinox as one of three ancient spring traditions, known as Spring Festas. Alban Eilir (March 21), the Druidic celebration of spring equinox, is the midpoint between Imbolc (February 1) and Beltane (May 1). A time of balance between light and darkness this day marks a turning point at which light begins to rise again over darkness.
Much like Ostara and other Spring Equinox traditions across cultures all over the world, Alban Eilir was a time to meditate on the balance of nature, both around us and internal, as well as the rising of light, warmth, and new life.
Origins of the Symbols of Spring
The Shamrock
Honored as a sacred plant, the shamrock trefoil was symbolic of the Spring Equinox for the Druids. Though Irish-Catholicism points to the shamrock as a representation of the Holy Trinity as demonstrated by St. Patrick, it has much earlier associations in ancient Druidic tradition. St. Patrick may have used the shamrock to demonstrate the Trinity to Druid High Priests, as the trefoil was already regarded as sacred to the order, thus using the symbol to persuade them to convert to Christianity, becoming Bishops themselves.
Easter Eggs
As a symbol of new life, it is plain to see how the egg was used as an ancient symbol of birth and renewal in pagan traditions during the Spring Equinox. Some historians believe that egg-decorating has been a Spring tradition as far back as the 13th Century. Decorated and engraved ostrich eggs nearly 60,000 years old have been found in Africa. Early cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Crete associated eggs with death, rebirth, and kingship, with gold and silver ostrich eggs commonly placed in Sumerian and Egyptian graves.
In the Christian faith, there was a time when eggs were forbidden during Lent, a time of fasting and penance that ends on Easter day. Some believe the tradition of decorating the eggs started as a celebration to the end of this Lenten season and they would enjoy their decorative eggs on Easter morning, though other historians point to an earlier origin. The early Christians of Mesopotamia may have adopted the custom from a Persian tradition, staining the eggs red to honor the blood shed by Christ during crucifixion.
Easter Bunny
The origins of the Easter Bunny tradition is a subject of some debate among historians. The rabbit is known to procreate frequently and thus may be used during this time as a symbol of fertility and new life.
Many believe the hare was likely associated with the goddess Ostara as her sacred animal companion. As far back as 1835, this association was first noted by Jacob Grimm in his published work, Deutsche Mythologie. The connotation was echoed by several authors, though The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore argues that no evidence of such an association exists, as Bede did not make mention of a sacred animal companion for the goddess.
