Easter Bunny
1881 When was the first time a well-known word or phrase was used in print? FirstMention.com explores the history and origins of famous people and places, and of popular phrases, companies, brand names, products and ideas, along with familiar words and sayings.
Easter dates back almost two thousand years, although the term itself is considerably older. Some folks pin the origins of the word Easter on Eostre, an ancient goddess of spring.
But what about the Easter Bunny? Where did he (she?...it?) come from?
And what's with the eggs? When you get right down to it, eggs aren't really a bunny rabbit sort of thing now, are they?
The origins of the Easter Bunny are shrouded in the mists of European history and mythology. The Osterhase, or Easter hare, was a well-known German tradition in the early 1800's, with egg-bearing rabbits part of the folklore. German children went on Easter egg hunts, and when some of their parents emigrated to America, the custom came with them.
The FirstMention of the Easter Bunny in English harks back to April 27, 1881, when a magazine, The Christian Union, printed a letter from a German fan of a Dear Abby-ish columnist of the day known as Aunt Patience.
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OK. I admit it. An Easter hare isn't quite the same as an Easter Bunny. Easter Hare Easter Bunny but we're getting close...close enough for a FirstMention, anyway. By 1888, we were closer still, with the FirstMention of the Easter Rabbit.
The book mentioned, Baumbach's Summer Legends, is a classic of fairy tale literature a la the Brothers Grimm, and the tale of "The Easter Rabbit" is replete with familiar themes: a little curly-haired, blue-eyed Goldilocks-ish character lost in the woods, wicked animals who threaten her, and a mysterious but kindly woodsman who commands the animals of the forest, and comes to the little girl's aid. The story even includes a stork who delivers babies.
Oddly, The Easter Rabbit is not really a character in the story, but simply the object of the girl's curiosity, and the reason for her wandering off in the first place.
Quite possibly, it was Baumbach's book that brought the Easter Rabbit to a widespread audience in the US, and in a few short years it was both well-known, and beginning the transformative process into the Easter Bunny, who had its FirstMention in the April 7, 1890 Minneapolis Journal.
And from there, it was only a short hop to....mmmmmm.... Just Born Marshmallow Peeps.
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