Tag: Ostara

A Ritual to Eostre

RoseLeave a comment

The spring has just been flying by and I have not been on top of the blog! It seems I blinked and it was Ēosturdæg. The big post I’ve been working on will be delayed, I’m afraid. But, never fear, I do have more content coming. For now, I have a somewhat belated ritual to share with you. I composed following group ritual for a meet-up with other Fyrsideras this weekend. I’m posting it a bit late but there’s no rule that says we can’t hail Ēostre any time besides Ēosturdæg! It’s a little short and sweet but I hope y’all find it helpful.

A few important notes: I am assuming that the individual or group performing the ritual has their own preferences for ritual cleansing, and so jump straight into the hallowing. And while I do not personally include a gatekeeper in my personal praxis, I have included a section for those who do; feel free to skip it. As always, my hallowing and closing are borrowed from my friend Wind in the Worldtree. See my Geol ritual for more ritual notes.

For this ritual you will need:

  • Some sort of flat space for an altar. A table, big flat rock, a window sill. Doesn’t matter.
  • An images of Ēostre (optional)
  • Libation offerings. Water or juice is absolutely fine.
  • Birdseed or similar
  • Something to pour the libations into.
  • Incense (optional). I use loose with charcoal, but whatever type you prefer is just dandy.
  • Candles. LED work just as well.

Hallowing

May the gods guide us,
May our oaths keep us,
May our deeds free us,
May our ancestors aid us always.
May the gods banish from this place ill and wrong,
Hallow this space, shield us from all baneful wights,
Let the gods’ blessing be over our heads!

Action: Walk around the space with a flame such as a candle or lamp as the words are spoken. Light the altar candles.

Statement of Purpose

We have come together today to celebrate the coming of spring, the beginning of a season of warmth and growth. Hrēðe has defeated Old Man Winter, and now Ēostre dances across the land, coaxing all that is green and good from Eorthe’s rich soil.

Gatekeeper

Æled, radiant one, offering-bearer
We ask that you give life to this flame
That it may carry our gifts and prayers
Upon its rising smoke
Open the gate!

Action: Pour a libation or light incense for Æled

Invocation

Hail Ēostre, Bringer of Summer and Bearer of Blossoms

[All: Hail Ēostre]


You bring us to wakefulness with the dawn
As you rouse the Earth from her Winter slumber.
You know the timing of flowers and the dances of bees.

We come before you to celebrate your day,
Grateful for the waking world around us,
For he dandelions that grow plentiful around our feet,
The singing of birds and the buzzing of bees.
And the sweet scent of spring rain before the summer blooms.
We thank you for these signs of the turning season
And the warmer temperatures that bring them.

They are such beautiful gifts that you give us.

A gift calls for a gift, and so now we bring you our humble offerings.

Action: Pour libations and/or scatter birdseed (if outdoors). If in a group, allow time after the main offering for individual prayers and offerings. You may also allow time for additional toasts.

Closing

From the gods, to the earth, to us
From us, to the earth, to the gods
A gift has been given, may it be well received

Action: Blow out candles to signify the end of the ritual and dispose of the offerings appropriately.

The Etymology of Easter, a Primer

RoseLeave a comment

I thought it was a bit early to be talking about Ēosturdæg, but Ostara gets celebrated earlier and the nonsense has started on social media already. So, here we are. This was not the post I was intending to write for Ēosturdæg (in fact, I have another one mostly written in drafts) but it is the one I feel compelled to write because I had the misfortune to be scrolling TikTok this morning.

There exists a certain pagan-phobic subset of Christians that refuse to use the word Easter. Some that I knew during my Christian days would stubbornly refuse to call the holiday anything other than “Resurrection Sunday” (despite the fact that other names for the holiday derived from Latin exist). And why would they do this? Because according to them, the word Easter comes from the name of the goddess Ishtar.

It’s funny, because they’re half right. Easter does come from the name of a pagan goddess… but not that one.

To understand the basic etymology of the name and why English speakers generally call the holiday Easter, we need look no further than the Venerable Bede1.

Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated as “Paschal month”, and which was once called after a goddess named Eostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honored name of the old observance.

De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time), The Venerable Bede

For those unfamiliar with Latin, “Paschal” in this context is the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this passage, Bede explains to us that an older English word has been grafted onto this celebration that is now dominate in England at the time of his writing.

So, Ēostre was a goddess in what we now called England who we know existed from this one singular reference from an English monk writing in the 700s CE. She may or may not have had cognates in other Germanic cultures, such as Jacob Grimm’s hypothesized Ostara. Honestly, this is an area of rather fascinating scholarly debate. I will save further discussion of that for my other upcoming post though.

Meanwhile, Ishtar (or Inanna, as she was known to the Sumerians) was a goddess worshiped by various cultures in and around Mesopotamia.2 The name Ishtar comes from Akkadian, a Semitic language.3

The probability that Ishtar influenced the development of Ēostre as a goddess or a linguistic concept in a completely different language family (Indo-European) is incredibly low. The Wiktionary entry for Ishtar even notes that this is a debunked modern folk-etymology.4 But if you want to explore the actual etymology of Ēostre in much greater depth (and gain a terrible headache) I suggest you check out the book I reviewed last month by Philip Shaw.

In conclusion, Easter comes from an Anglo-Saxon name for an Anglo-Saxon goddess that attached to a Christian holiday as a localized name through the normal processes of syncretism and assimilation. While the name may be pagan in origin (if you believe Bede as I do), it has been used in a Christian context for a minimum of 1300 years. If it was good enough for Bede in 725, it’s probably fine. But if you’re going to be weird about words with pagan origins I’ve got some bad news about the days of the week…

Post-Easter Edit

I’ve see so many progressive Christian clergy slandering the Venerable Bede this week that it’s making my head spin. You do not have to accuse Bede of “making shit up” to make the case that the celebration of Easter as we know it is a Christian phenomenon. In case I was not clear above, having the local name stem from a possible pagan goddess does not make the holiday itself pagan. Easter is an entirely Christian holiday and not “stolen” from pagans. That doesn’t invalidate pagans who wish to celebrate Eosturdæg as a day devoted to Eostre or pagans who wish to celebrate the equinox as Ostara. Something doesn’t have to be ancient to be valid.

  1. Bede was a monk who lived from about 672 CE to 735 CE. He wrote an An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, as well The Reckoning of Time, which is the single best source for reconstructing the pagan Anglo-Saxon calendar. Here’s the Wikipedia entry if you want a jumping off point to read more about Bede. ↩︎
  2. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on Inanna if you again want a jumping off point for further reading. ↩︎
  3. Somewhat ironically, “paschal” from the Latin “pascha” actually comes from another language in the same family as Akkadian: Hebrew. ↩︎
  4. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Ishtar ↩︎