PORTLAND — Easter bunnies and Easter eggs are everywhere. At the White House there will be an Easter egg hunt. And if I am lucky, on Easter Sunday my loving wife will place a dark chocolate rabbit at my breakfast place. Sooner or later I will bite off its head. But all along, in the back of my mind Bugs Bunny chomps on his carrot, asking “What’s up doc?”

Oh, yes, there is Easter — sunrise services, resurrection, rebirth, lilies. It is the most important and oldest of the festivals of the Christian church, commemorating the resurrection of Christ and observed on the Sunday that follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

Interesting also is that among Germanic languages, only in English and German is the word “Easter” used for the festival, whereas in most European languages the usual word is derived from the corresponding word for the Jewish Passover. In “The Heliand,” one of the major documents that retold the Christian Gospel to the Anglo-Saxons in the first half of the ninth century, “pascha” is used instead of “Easter.”

A bit further search reveals that once upon a time there was an Anglo-Saxon goddess variously spelled Eastre, Eostre or Ostara, a dawn goddess whose festival was celebrated around the time of the vernal equinox, and clearly having to do with the sunrise in the east, which, of course, is dawn.

The Indo-European root for dawn has to do with “glow, red, flame,” and the dawn goddess emerges as Eos in Greek and Aurora in Latin, the latter being related to Latin for “gold.” As late as the 16th century in Lithuania, Auora, a personification of dawn, is documented. And the Irish St. Brigit is said to have been born at sunrise on the threshold of the house, her mother having one foot inside, one outside.

Lest we forget, supernaturals have escorts, thus Athena has her owl and witches have their black cats. What does Eastre have? Her rabbit! And Eastre is often depicted holding an egg, symbol of rebirth. The trouble is that there is evidence that this was originally a snake egg. The snake had not yet been demonized.

But why and how did the confluence of the most fundamental Christian belief and the pre-existing pagan festival of renewal and rebirth come to pass? The Scottish and Irish missionaries who spread Christianity on the continent starting in the late fifth century were wise or practical enough to see the efficacy of adapting existing, albeit pagan, holidays and super-imposing the Christian Gospel.

It is in “The Heliand” that we find the most coherent source that helps us understand some of what it took to make the story of Christ understandable and acceptable to northern European peoples.

What was familiar to them was the belief in magic, and so the magical aspect of biblical events is emphasized. The Last Supper, the Seder or the Eucharist is portrayed as powerful magic. Turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana becomes a ritual that Christ performs. (“God’s mighty Child gave his orders very quietly so that a lot of people would not know for sure how He said it with His words and then He made the sign of the cross over it with His fingers, with His own hands — He worked it into wine.”)

In the scene where Jesus teaches the Lord’s Prayer, the Anglo-Saxon disciples beg Christ to “teach us the secret runes.”

Finally, Christ’s crucifixion reminded the Anglo-Saxon listeners or readers of the familiar practice of sacrificial hanging from trees, such as their chief god Wotan had done to gain secret knowledge. So the crucifixion is described in the chapter in “The Heliand” titled “The Chieftain is hanged on the criminal tree.”

All of this, it seems to me, enriches us by reminding us that traditions do not materialize out of nothing. So celebrating renewal that spring brings may take many forms, from bringing sprouting branches or Easter lilies into your house to gathering for a festive meal. A fine Shiraz wine will go well with the lamb.

— Special to the Telegram