The Easter Bunny (also called the Easter Rabbit or
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![330px-Easter_Bunny_Postcard_1907.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Easter_Bunny_Postcard_1907.jpg/330px-Easter_Bunny_Postcard_1907.jpg)
Spring fertility pagan:
Rabbits and hares are both prolific breeders. Female hares can conceive a second litter of offspring while still pregnant with the first.[9][10] This phenomenon is known as superfetation. Lagomorphs mature sexually at an early age and can give birth to several litters a year (hence the saying, "to breed like rabbits" or "to breed like bunnies"
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In addition, Orthodox churches have a custom of abstaining from eggs during the fast of Lent. The only way to keep them from being wasted was to boil or roast them, and begin eating them to break the fast.[citation needed] As a special dish, they would probably have been decorated as part of the celebrations. Later, German Protestants retained the custom of eating colored eggs for Easter, though they did not continue the tradition of fasting.[11] Eggs boiled with some flowers change their color, bringing the spring into the homes, and some over time added the custom of decorating the eggs.[12] Many Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red,[13] the color of blood, in recognition of the blood of the sacrificed Christ (and, of the renewal of life in springtime). Some also use the color green, in honor of the new foliage emerging after the long-dead time of winter. The Ukrainian art of decorating eggs for Easter, known as pysanky, dates to ancient, pre-Christian times. Similar variants of this form of artwork are seen amongst other eastern and central European cultures.[14]
The idea of an egg-giving hare went to the U.S. in the 18th century. Protestant German immigrants in the Pennsylvania Dutch area told their children about the "Osterhase" (sometimes spelled "Oschter Haws"[15]).[16] Hase means "hare", not rabbit, and in Northwest European folklore the "Easter Bunny" indeed is a hare. According to the legend, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in the nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter.[17]
![300px-Easterbunny_1.jpg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/51/Easterbunny_1.jpg/300px-Easterbunny_1.jpg)
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