Ostara _ rituals, recipes, & lore for the spring equinox ( PDFDrive )

mating season. It’s the time of rebirth and renewal. The cycle of life is starting
anew.
Ostara isn’t just about chicks and bunnies, nor is it even really about the
Goddess Eostre, who gives her name to this festival. While Eostre is said to be a
goddess of spring, fertility, and the dawn, there is truly very little information
about her. Research shows the first mention of the Goddess Eostre was in the
eighth century by a Northumbrian monk named Bede in his 725 CE work titled
De temporum ratione (A Reckoning of Time). (Hutton, 180–181) According to
Bede, during Ēosturmōnaþ (the equivalent of April), the Pagans celebrated
Eostre with feasts before the Christian holiday Easter came into existence. The
Christian holiday of Easter is named either after Eostre or Ēosturmōnaþ, which in
turn is thought to be the Proto-Indo-European root for “to shine” or “dawn.”
Ronald Hutton tells us in Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in
Britain:
It falls into that category of interpretations that Bede admitted to be his own,
rather than generally agreed or proven fact. A number of German scholars
cast doubt upon its utility during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
although not with sufficient evidence to disprove it in turn. Two facts do
seem to emerge from the discussion. One is that versions of the name given
by Bede were used widely among speakers of Germanic languages during or
shortly after his time; thus the Christian festival was known as Ostarstuopha
in the Main valley during the eighth and ninth centuries. The other is that the
Anglo-Saxon eastre, signifying both the festival and the season of spring is
associated with a set of words in various Indo-European languages,
signifying dawn and also goddesses who personified that event, such as the
Greek Eos, the Roman Aurora, and the Indian Ushas. (180)
But why isn’t there any other information about this goddess before this date?
While some scholars agree with this account, others do not. Some claim Eostre
to be a Celtic goddess, others a Germanic one, but it’s still up for debate whether
or not this goddess ever existed or if she was revered and celebrated in the ways
we have recently been told. We really don’t know much about how she was
celebrated other than the description of “feasts,” or if she even truly existed at