■ Jess Suisted unpacks the surprising history behind Easter bunnies, eggs and traditions

“Mum, why does the Easter Bunny bring eggs if rabbits don’t lay eggs?”

A great question for a young logical thinker, and just like that I was off down a rabbit hole.

It turns out, that the connection between the Easter bunny and Easter eggs is symbolic not biological, who would have thought.

I’m not a history whiz, so when I get these kinds of questions, I have to ask Mr Google and it told me “hares and eggs are both ancient symbols of fertility and new life,” fascinating.

Further into my exploring, I learnt that the Easter bunny that brings children chocolate eggs has pagan origins tracing back to German folklore about the spring goddess “Eostre”.

She was associated with fertility and renewal. Both hares and eggs were symbols connected to her because they represented fertility and the return of life after winter.

Apparently, this “Easter Hare” also judged children on whether they were naughty or nice (sound familiar?) and dependant on their obedience – or lack of – would bring them coloured eggs, lollies, and sometimes small toys.

The hare turned into a bunny because, when the tradition made it to America there were more rabbits than hares and hence the easter bunny sprung up.

Makes sense right?

Another European legend says that the hares didn’t close their eyes at night so they could watch out for other animals, so it became a symbol of the moon.

And, of course, the moon is connected with Easter because the date we celebrate Easter changes with the cycle of the moon.

Easter is observed on the first Sunday following the first full moon on or after the spring equinox in case you were wondering.

Stories about where Easter eggs came from are also fascinating, and colourful.

They include, but are not limited to: giving painted or dyed chicken eggs as gifts in the springtime, rolling eggs down hills (boiled I assume) and, of course, eggs have the “new life” connection too.

Eggs are also connected to the season of Lent, the 40 days of fasting and reflection celebrated by some Christians leading up to Easter.

Traditionally, eggs were among the foods they abstained from during this time. which meant that by the time Easter Sunday rolled around they were a desirable treat.

Of course, turning anything into a chocolate treat is a good idea, so naturally, we started making chocolate Easter eggs sometime in the early 19th century.

As with most traditions, they transform. It’s a long and winding road from a German fertility goddess to a basket-toting fluffy (pink?) bunny who turns up at Easter with chocolate eggs. But that’s how traditions often work. They travel through time, picking up new meaning as they go.

For early pagans, Easter (Ostara) represented the arrival of spring and therefore new life, for our Jewish community Easter is the celebration of Passover (Pesach) which is the Jewish holiday celebrating their exit from Egyptian slavery.

For the Christian community, Easter is the celebration of Jesus’s death on a cross and resurrection three days later. Can you see where another Easter favourite originates from, hot cross buns.

Interestingly, the spices in them – nutmeg and cinnamon – were used to embalm Jesus for his burial after his death on the cross.

For Christians, these symbols have been woven into a celebration, which at its heart, is about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

As a Christian myself, I’ve always loved how we can see this incredible story within these symbols if you peel back the layers.

To me, the hollow Easter egg points to truth more than tradition, representing the empty tomb where on Good Friday, Jesus life-less body was laid and by Easter Sunday it was empty as He was Alive.

So, while the biology of bunnies and eggs might be a bit wonky, the message remains clear: life wins.