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Easter egg hunts…

• Message 1. 

  Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Saturday, 23rd April 2011

  
  
  With Easter upon us… and many an egg hunt planned for tomorrow… perhaps those involved on the hunts nationwide could also keep an eye out for host Katy, who although says we have not been abandoned… may have been ‘taken’ or abducted… apart from her one mention last week on the quiz… has anyone seen her or heard from her since taking over… maybe it’s a cunning plan… maybe she’s just a pre-recorded message to lull us into thinking everything at GHQ Â鶹ԼÅÄ is tickety boo… yet another typically shabby trick.
  

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by mismatched (U14242423) on Saturday, 23rd April 2011

  Has anyone asked the Easter Hare?

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• Message 3

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  Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Saturday, 23rd April 2011

  Do you mean a case of hare last week but pulled the shutters down and done a bunk today…?

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• Message 4

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  Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 23rd April 2011

  I wouldn't ask him, he was mad as a hatter last month and he's still none too chuffed.
  In this vein, when did easter egg hunts and the easter bunny become popular? I don't remember either from when I was wee. What I do remember, and you don't seem to get now, were hollow sugar eggs with a hole at one end and there was a 3 dimensional scene inside.

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• Message 5

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  Posted by mismatched (U14242423) on Sunday, 24th April 2011

  I remember those eggs with the scene inside but the ones that I remember were made of cardboard perhaps papier mache. I remember hollow sugar eggs.
  
  I am sure that it was originally an Easter Hare as rabbits were a Norman introduction.

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• Message 6

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  Posted by islanddawn (U7379884) on Sunday, 24th April 2011

  In this vein, when did easter egg hunts and the easter bunny become popular? 
  
  Seems we can place the blame on the Germans and Americans
  
  "Bringing Easter eggs seems to have its origins in Alsace and the Upper Rhineland, both then in the Holy Roman Empire, and southwestern Germany, where the practice was first recorded in a German publication in the 1500s (early 16th century).[5] The first edible Easter Eggs were made in Germany during the early 19th century and were made of pastry and sugar.[citation needed]
  
  The Easter Bunny was introduced to the United States by the German settlers who arrived in the Pennsylvania Dutch country during the 18th century.[6] The arrival of the Osterhase was considered one of "childhood's greatest pleasures", similar to the arrival of Kris Kringle on Christmas Eve.
  
  According to the tradition, children would build brightly colored nests, often out of caps and bonnets, in secluded areas of their homes. The "Oster Hawse" would, if the children had been good, lay brightly colored eggs in the nest. As the tradition spread, the nest has become the manufactured, modern Easter basket, and the placing of the nest in a secluded area has become the tradition of hiding baskets.[7]
  
  Eggs, like rabbits and hares, are fertility symbols of antiquity. Since birds lay eggs and rabbits and hares give birth to large litters in the early spring, these became symbols of the rising fertility of the earth at the Vernal Equinox.
  
  Rabbits and hares are both prolific breeders. The females can conceive a second litter of offspring while still pregnant with the first.[citation needed] 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 bunnies"). It is therefore not surprising that rabbits and hares should become fertility symbols, or that their springtime mating antics should enter into Easter folklore.
  
  Postcard dated 1911 by WinschThe precise origin of the ancient custom of coloring eggs is not known, although evidently the blooming of many flowers in spring coincides with the use of the fertility symbol of eggs—and eggs boiled with some flowers change their color, bringing the spring into the homes. Many Christians of the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day typically dye their Easter eggs red,[8] 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.
  
  German Protestants wanted to retain the Catholic custom of eating colored eggs for Easter, but did not want to introduce their children to the Catholic rite of fasting. Eggs were forbidden to Catholics during the fast of Lent, which was the reason for the abundance of eggs at Easter time.[9]
  
  The idea of an egg-laying bunny came to the U.S. in the 18th century. German immigrants in the Pennsylvania Dutch area told their children about the "Osterhas", sometimes spelled "Oschter Haws". "Hase" means "hare", not rabbit, and in Northwest European folklore the "Easter Bunny" indeed is a hare, not a rabbit. 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.[10] In 1835, Jakob Grimm wrote of long-standing similar myths in Germany itself. Grimm suggested that these derived from legends of a goddess called Ostara,[11] but as a romanticist, he tried to connect contemporary customs to pre-Christian traditions, knowing that no written sources of that time existed. Additionally, a goddess of that name is only mentioned in a single ancient source giving an ambiguous statement about an Ostara month."
  
  
  
  

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