Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuning in for those of us in the crowd
Speaker 1: who celebrate Easter, Happy Easter in classic Ridiculous History fashion,
Speaker 1: we are getting to you a little bit after the
Speaker 1: actual thing. Cuckuckatube, cuckuckutchew. Indeed, I'm the eman m h
Speaker 1: uh is the cuckoockachew replacing the rah.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try a different one on for size every
Speaker 2: now and again, But no, uh, cuckoock tube. Often I
Speaker 2: thought for the years I thought it was cuckoo kachow.
Speaker 2: It is in fact googoo goojub and it refers to
Speaker 2: the wait, is that true? It is true. It's googoo goojube. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and refers to a total boop for thirty three years now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, I know same.
Speaker 2: I think I saw it printed or something where I
Speaker 2: watched Magical Mystery Tour and the subtitles were on. I
Speaker 2: was like, what's that then? But you know, and of
Speaker 2: course you're referring to the egg man. He is the
Speaker 2: egg man. What's that about? It turns out that the
Speaker 2: origins of Easter are about as nonsensical as a Beatles lyric.
Speaker 1: Well that's that's a shout out to our super producer
Speaker 1: Max the Eggman Williams. I am Ben Bullen with me
Speaker 1: as always is the one and only the man the
Speaker 1: myth legend, mister Noel Brown. And we are talking about Easter.
Speaker 1: It's been on people's minds for a while. I recently
Speaker 1: sent you guys a text as a as a Christian.
Speaker 1: To be clear, I am always perplexed by Easter, by
Speaker 1: the religious syncretism involved. And I sent you guys a
Speaker 1: text when I was I can't say specifically where, but
Speaker 1: I was. I was out of Atlanta and I saw
Speaker 1: someone dressed up in the Easter bunny garb. And what
Speaker 1: I love about Easter in the United States is it's
Speaker 1: like a new seasonal cryptid just dropped, you know, totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and it's a living too. You know.
Speaker 2: There are people that I've actually got a dear friend who,
Speaker 2: for a period of time was a mall Easter bunny,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, a way to make some seasonal
Speaker 2: scratch question, guys, is Toturo of my neighbor Toturo fame
Speaker 2: a bunny?
Speaker 1: I would you know, I don't like to put creativity
Speaker 1: in a box.
Speaker 2: Fair And just for the record, this is an audio
Speaker 2: pod because I am holding up a little figurine of Toucho.
Speaker 2: I actually have these nesting dolls of the lovely Miyazaki character,
Speaker 2: who to me has always appeared to be a giant
Speaker 2: hair rabbit bunny of sorts. But to your point, Ben, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's much more of a cryptid in his own right.
Speaker 2: But what's what you know? We should talk about that.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about a bunch of things that the hair
Speaker 2: pagan is and maybe we start with the pagans. Huh
Speaker 2: they kind of were first to market with this stuff, right.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, spoilers, Noel, Yeah, I love it. Let's
Speaker 1: as r Palmax says, hop along to the history of Easter.
Speaker 1: So if you grow up in the United States in particular,
Speaker 1: wherein every holiday is monetized or commercialized in some way,
Speaker 1: then you know that Easter is one of ridiculous histories,
Speaker 1: most baffling holidays. It moves around in the calendar, right,
Speaker 1: like how we're always startled when Thanksgiving happens and we go,
Speaker 1: oh snap, it's that Thursday.
Speaker 2: Which is I'm sorry, just again for the folks playing
Speaker 2: along at home, which Thursday of the month is Thanksgiving again.
Speaker 1: Fourth it's the fourth we it's the fourth one. And
Speaker 1: it took us this show to learn that in our
Speaker 1: personal lives, which I clearly have not internalized. Just for
Speaker 1: the record, it's okay, man. I think we have an
Speaker 1: emergency group text that we send out once a year
Speaker 1: on Wednesday.
Speaker 2: Advance is the one we also send around the link
Speaker 2: for the YouTube video on how to tie a tie
Speaker 2: when the time and it becomes necessary.
Speaker 1: So so Easter is similar to Halloween, similar to Christmas.
Speaker 1: It is a culmination of ancient religious practices, schools of
Speaker 1: spiritual thought that did not did not always vibe together.
Speaker 1: You don't know, you get to the heart of the
Speaker 1: matter here, or you get to the yoke of the
Speaker 1: egg here with the pagan idea. So let's go to
Speaker 1: Penny Travers over at the ABC Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Speaker 2: Penny Travers is such a dignified sounding name to me,
Speaker 2: I don't know I like it.
Speaker 4: I gotta be honest. When I was writing this brief,
Speaker 4: looking ato a couple of sorts I could find, but
Speaker 4: when I saw one of them was source by Penny Travers.
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, that's what we're using, rather Penny Travers,
Speaker 4: but it has an air of authority to it.
Speaker 2: And Penny points out that in Australia, much like in America,
Speaker 2: on Easter Sunday, there's this idea of almost in Santa
Speaker 2: Claus fashion, a creature of sorts delivering candy and chocolate
Speaker 2: eggs and perhaps brightly colored heart boiled eggs two homes
Speaker 2: across the nation, and poses the question of how in
Speaker 2: the hell did this seemingly bizarre tradition come to be,
Speaker 2: and then points out, well, actually, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: Easter began as a pagan festival celebrating in the northern
Speaker 2: Hemisphere far before a little old thing called Christianity needed
Speaker 2: to kind of co opt this whole season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because these celebrations are based on the passage of time,
Speaker 1: the movement of the Earth in a larger context of
Speaker 1: the heavens. Right, so equinoxes, solstices. As you're hearing this,
Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians, there is a solar eclipse on the
Speaker 1: way to you don't miss it, and make sure you
Speaker 1: get your glasses. Make sure you get your eclipse glasses.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll say, parents Williams. They are actually heading to Indianapolis.
Speaker 3: See to get that totality.
Speaker 2: I've only just really found out that that was such
Speaker 2: an important part of it. I guess I've never I've
Speaker 2: only ever seen any eclipse from the less cool vantage point.
Speaker 2: But I think there are some places in Kentucky I
Speaker 2: think that qualify as well as as Little Rock, Arkansas.
Speaker 3: I have a.
Speaker 2: Friend who is going, like literally doing an eclipse trip.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think the eclipse is a perfect
Speaker 2: analogy of that battle between light and darkness, you know,
Speaker 2: which if you look at it from the perspective of
Speaker 2: survival throughout the ages, you know, darkness kind of represents
Speaker 2: cold and the smothering you know of a livelihood perhaps
Speaker 2: or of you know, crops and things like that, and
Speaker 2: the light, of course represents growth and life, and all
Speaker 2: of life exists as somewhat of a continuum between the two.
Speaker 2: So I think it's an interesting thing to celebrate because
Speaker 2: it is very much like a lot of the ancient
Speaker 2: civilations we discussed in the show. It's almost a worship
Speaker 2: or a giving thanks for that balance and the hopes
Speaker 2: that we won't be plunged into eternal darkness and gold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, since prehistoric times, before the before the humans began
Speaker 1: to write their stuff down, everyone realized that there were
Speaker 1: certain predictable cycles to the passage of time. And let's
Speaker 1: go to University of Sydney professor Carol Cusack, quoted by
Speaker 1: Penny Travers. Because I know you guys like hearing me
Speaker 1: say the name, Carol Cusack said, quote, the spring equinox
Speaker 1: is a day where the amount of dark and the
Speaker 1: amount of daylight is exactly identical. So you can tell
Speaker 1: that you are emerging from winter because the daylight and
Speaker 1: the dark I've come back into balance. People mapped their
Speaker 1: whole life according to the patterns of nature, So there's
Speaker 1: this concept of celebration of spring. However, as we earlier
Speaker 1: established and shows like stuff, they don't want you to
Speaker 1: know the life. The narrative of Jesus Christ echoes these
Speaker 1: earlier learnings, right, there is a time of darkness, a
Speaker 1: time of death, at a time of rebirth. The concept
Speaker 1: of Easter as a Christian holiday is in the long term, honestly, guys,
Speaker 1: it's kind of recent. It dates back to the fourth
Speaker 1: century CE, the three hundreds, right.
Speaker 3: According to a website called Cheffin.
Speaker 2: Around mid three hundred eighty, Christianity was increasing in popularity
Speaker 2: in Rome, then the center of the world. In three twelve,
Speaker 2: the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity, which, as we know,
Speaker 2: was a big deal and put an end the ongoing
Speaker 2: persecution of Christians. But you know, he as we often
Speaker 2: see with cultures that are trying to kind of convert others,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of subsume the history and practices of
Speaker 2: other cultures. You kind of got to ease them into
Speaker 2: it a little bit at the very least, kind of
Speaker 2: what's that word been where you kind of have a
Speaker 2: feature that reminds you of something old, like in design skewmoorph. Yeah, skewmoorph.
Speaker 2: This is kind of a skewmoorph where they're like, Okay, Pagans,
Speaker 2: we'll keep to your schedule here that you recognize, but
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a little different, but it'll still have that,
Speaker 2: you know, that familiarity to you. And then before you
Speaker 2: know it, you won't even be Pagans anymore, and you
Speaker 2: won't even realize how it happened.
Speaker 1: You were always worshiping our God, you just didn't have
Speaker 1: the right vocabulary to do so right, So that's that'll switch, yeah,
Speaker 1: very much, beat and switch and so okay, here's here's
Speaker 1: how it goes down, and we'll get into the origins
Speaker 1: of the name, the etymology. We love etymology here, so
Speaker 1: shout out ishtar and oste and so on. So in
Speaker 1: three twenty five CE or a d is the Vatican
Speaker 1: prefers the boffins at this new thing called Christianity. They
Speaker 1: assemble something called the Council of Nicea. And these are
Speaker 1: the folks who decide that the celebration of what they
Speaker 1: call Easter should fall on all right, everybody listen closely
Speaker 1: the Sunday after the first full moon of the spring equinox. Yikes,
Speaker 1: that'll be easy to track. It'll be super easy to track.
Speaker 1: What could go wrong? We got it. It's a rotating holiday.
Speaker 1: It's based on a lunar calendar, which secular folks don't
Speaker 1: practice in the modern day.
Speaker 2: No, and maybe there are some folks out there that
Speaker 2: are more attuned to these kinds of celestial movements and
Speaker 2: be like, yeah, it is easy to track, but to me,
Speaker 2: it just seems like you could lose track of it
Speaker 2: real quick and it could be sort of up for interpretation.
Speaker 3: That's all I'm getting at there.
Speaker 1: And so there was like a marketing thing. They were like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's tie it to our messiah, right, death, birth, renewal.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So they do that very thing, Easter Sunday is born,
Speaker 2: and they really link it with those symbols that you mentioned, Ben,
Speaker 2: and the idea of Christ has risen, you know, he
Speaker 2: has risen. Indeed, this is an example of what you
Speaker 2: mentioned earlier, Ben, religious syncretism. And now we're gonna get
Speaker 2: into that etymology we teased a little bit. According to Britannica,
Speaker 2: the English word for Easter parallels the German word Austern
Speaker 2: is of very uncertain origin, and I believe is it Austern. No,
Speaker 2: isn't that like East? Yeah, yeah, think of think of
Speaker 2: like Oriental. I guess that's right, Yeah, one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: so Austern. But the origin of that, you know, the
Speaker 2: actual etymology is a little uncertain. But of course when
Speaker 2: we have on certain origins, that usually means we've got
Speaker 2: a lot of ideas. And one of these ideas came
Speaker 2: from somebody with an Austin name. First I thought it
Speaker 2: was just the venerable bed in the eighth century but
Speaker 2: his name actually apparently was Venerable with a capital D,
Speaker 2: and he believed that it was derived from basically also
Speaker 2: probably pronounced Ulster or e Austre, which is e O
Speaker 2: s t r E and e O s t r
Speaker 2: a E, respectively, which was the Anglo Saxon goddess of
Speaker 2: spring and fertility.
Speaker 1: Which itself descends from another previous god. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's a really interesting point here, and our friends of
Speaker 1: Britannica are aware of this as well. The views of
Speaker 1: this eighth CE century historian that we're quoting, or philosopher
Speaker 1: that we're quoting, has an assumption inherent. It's the idea
Speaker 1: that Christians appropriated pagan names and holidays without necessarily understanding
Speaker 1: the providence of those festivals or their cultural importance. They
Speaker 1: saw the similarities they wished to see. We would call
Speaker 1: this cherry picking in the modern day. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's weird. There's a paradox at play because Christians in
Speaker 1: the early days and indeed in the current evenings were
Speaker 1: very opposed to the idea of paganism. Right, there's the
Speaker 1: one true God. They are not multiple gods. We're not polytheistic,
Speaker 1: says Pope Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's the whole thing about like the people that went
Speaker 2: down to worship the Golden Calf and all of that.
Speaker 2: And I mean they're made examples of if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: in the Bible, aren't they like, you know, the worshippers mollok, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're like taken out by you know, and like Sodom
Speaker 2: and gomoor on all this stuff. Like anyone that is
Speaker 2: perceived as being pagan is perceived as being in some
Speaker 2: way against God. Or if you want to listen to
Speaker 2: an episode about the history of the Antichrist, check out
Speaker 2: stuff they don't want you to know where we talk about.
Speaker 2: Is it the Antichrist or just being anti Christ is
Speaker 2: just a bad vibe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so the idea. Now, scholars will largely agree
Speaker 1: that the word Easter derives from a Latin phrase aldus,
Speaker 1: which was the plural of alba, which is just dawn,
Speaker 1: right like albatross named for a bird. That that's a
Speaker 1: Latin thing, and it translates through Old High German, which
Speaker 1: you know, descends into German and modern English. We also have,
Speaker 1: by the way, for anybody listening along, who's sell braids
Speaker 1: passover in place of Easter. Guess what, It's still the
Speaker 1: same human celebration of resurgence, of survival. Basically, so Latin
Speaker 1: and Greek Pasha comes from the French word for easter, popways,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to go too far into the Hebrew.
Speaker 1: The point you need to know is that the word
Speaker 1: Easter definitely doesn't come from the Bible nor the Torah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's a tricky holiday, you got it.
Speaker 3: What is it?
Speaker 1: The first full moon, the first Sunday after the full first.
Speaker 2: Full moon of the after the equinox, or of the equinox.
Speaker 2: I believe right, Bet. I think you have also been watching,
Speaker 2: at the very least seen some of the show Showgun
Speaker 2: on FX, which is really good. It's like a really epic,
Speaker 2: you know, sweeping kind of Game of Thrones, ask historical fiction.
Speaker 2: It's no dragons, it's real. But one thing that I
Speaker 2: found really fascinating, and I maybe hadn't seen it portrayed
Speaker 2: quite this clearly in other media, was just how like
Speaker 2: many of the Japanese willingly converted to Christianity, you know,
Speaker 2: and Catholicism, and that certainly is the case in other
Speaker 2: parts of the world. And I think there's something to
Speaker 2: this religious syncretism that almost is like kind of built
Speaker 2: into the ministering or the like you know what's the
Speaker 2: word when you go on a mission trip to kind
Speaker 2: of make it hey, check it out, it's just like
Speaker 2: your thing sort of you know, right, It makes it
Speaker 2: an easier sell or.
Speaker 1: Some evangelize to proselytize. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And this is
Speaker 1: this is a hard cell. It's a toll milkshake for
Speaker 1: some of the Christian Christian missionaries in times past. When
Speaker 1: someone says, okay, I get it. You had a crazy
Speaker 1: good sales pitch. So when do I celebrate this Easter?
Speaker 1: And that's when the missionaries say, oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Funny thing.
Speaker 1: We've got a weird schedule for this one, right yeah yeah.
Speaker 3: And where the two calendars kind of collide, right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, yes, when worlds collide, when religions collide. So
Speaker 1: there are multiple good explanations of why this thing happens.
Speaker 1: This long story, short and happy occasional birthday to our
Speaker 1: pal Max Williams. Sometimes his birthday does occur on Easter
Speaker 1: because birthdays in Max's tradition are based on the Gregorian calendar.
Speaker 1: But Easter is a Christian holiday, Easter is a Pagan
Speaker 1: holiday wearied a Christian jacket, which is why it floats
Speaker 1: around in the calendar.
Speaker 2: And that is because the actual date of the spring equinox,
Speaker 2: can you know, has a little bit of wiggle.
Speaker 3: Room a couple of days or so on either end.
Speaker 2: The Catholic Church, however, created a fixed date of March
Speaker 2: twenty first to define it, known as the Ecclesiastical Equinox,
Speaker 2: and the full moon that occurs just on or after
Speaker 2: March twenty first is known as the Pushall or Pascal
Speaker 2: full moon, and that I think it must be push
Speaker 2: All because it derives from a Greek and Latin word pasha,
Speaker 2: which is referring to passover. So that means that you
Speaker 2: start to see why this can get a little bit.
Speaker 3: Confusing, and you have a bit of a.
Speaker 2: Arrange rather than an actual solid date of when Easter
Speaker 2: can fall. And a lot of this had to do
Speaker 2: with the clashing between the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's go to well, well, let's talk in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four terms, twenty twenty four most of modern history,
Speaker 1: and going forward, you're going to find the date of
Speaker 1: Easter anywhere between March twenty second and April twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: And this is all because our pal Max if we
Speaker 1: get a sound, cute heavy g himself, Pope Gregory thirteen
Speaker 1: he instituted the Gregorian calendar, and a burst of humility,
Speaker 1: he named it the Gregorian Calendar. It goes into effect
Speaker 1: in fifteen eighty two, and Easter is most likely to
Speaker 1: fall on April sixteenth between then between fifteen eighty three
Speaker 1: and the year three thousand, three thousand. But again you
Speaker 1: see it floating around. But why why this hub up
Speaker 1: man gets it gets even more complicated.
Speaker 3: You can leap your brain right now, bro.
Speaker 1: Seriously, I'm glad you brought that up, Noel, because there
Speaker 1: are a lot of people practicing Christians who do not
Speaker 1: use the Gregorian calendar. If you're Eastern Orthodox, and shout
Speaker 1: out to you fellow ridiculous historians practicing this, you use
Speaker 1: the Julian calendar, the preceding calendar for your holiday observations,
Speaker 1: which means your Easter can be between April fourth or
Speaker 1: May eighth. If you convert it to the Gregorian calendar,
Speaker 1: it's like Celsius and fahrenheit. If I was an alien
Speaker 1: landing on this planet, I would be like, why just
Speaker 1: pick pick a day, just pick like the same day.
Speaker 1: It's complicated, but it wasn't always. So it's been a
Speaker 1: complex matter for thousands of years because they're trying to
Speaker 1: reconcile I would say, the intricacies between the solar and
Speaker 1: lunar cycles, which are ultimately the calendars of humanity.
Speaker 2: And I gotta say, I mean, I still I've been
Speaker 2: in conversation just with friends. I'm like, so we shud
Speaker 2: an episode on leap here and I still don't really
Speaker 2: understand how it works, And they're like, what it's the gist.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I this is I'm gonna try to compact.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's just the idea of a mistake that
Speaker 2: was made long ago that, if left unchecked, would cause
Speaker 2: all of the recorded stuff from history to not be
Speaker 2: in a discernible schedule.
Speaker 3: Let's just say, like, we couldn't we couldn't call.
Speaker 2: Out dates and have them line up with dates that
Speaker 2: other people think things happened.
Speaker 3: On, right, right, Okay, cool, I guess maybe I do
Speaker 3: get it.
Speaker 4: And to jump in here, I mean it is also
Speaker 4: important to remember the reason they've changed with Julian calendar
Speaker 4: for the Greg Gordan calendar was to make sure Easter
Speaker 4: did end up, that's right.
Speaker 2: So so that's why this is so important because you know,
Speaker 2: this is where how power, religion and functional things that
Speaker 2: affect either the non religious of us all completely intersect.
Speaker 1: It's like network programming. You don't want competing programs, right.
Speaker 4: And see here's the funniest thing though, was the the
Speaker 4: error between the Julian calendar and greg Goran calendar was
Speaker 4: so much smaller.
Speaker 3: Than other eras had ever been.
Speaker 4: But it was just this one motivating factor because it
Speaker 4: it was like ten or eleven days off. But you
Speaker 4: remember like when they went from like the Roman calendar
Speaker 4: to the Julian it was like months off and they
Speaker 4: were just randomly putting more days in that time and stuff.
Speaker 1: I remember, I was there. It was terrible. It was
Speaker 1: also hilarious. It was back in the day. I mean, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get to the big question. Guys, our fellow ridiculous historians,
Speaker 1: some of whom may have had to wear rabbit costumes
Speaker 1: today or this past weekend, they're wondering, what's the deal
Speaker 1: with the rabbit? Also, what's to deal with the eggs?
Speaker 1: Why is there this anthropomorphic rabbit that hides eggs that
Speaker 1: are oftentimes not human or not. You know, actual eggs
Speaker 1: or plastic eggs now with little treats inside them.
Speaker 3: Why is that a thing?
Speaker 1: Is that what Jesus Christ would have wanted?
Speaker 3: I think? So? Who to say what he would have wanted?
Speaker 3: Just likely that, as anything else.
Speaker 1: He didn't shout it out too much. But we have
Speaker 1: the answer with the eggs.
Speaker 3: We certainly do.
Speaker 2: And you know, even without doing the research, you can
Speaker 2: kind of figure out a little bit of why this
Speaker 2: might have been. What is it? What did the Pagan
Speaker 2: version of Easter represent? What does the Christian version of
Speaker 2: either Easter represent? It's all about rebirth, you know, it's
Speaker 2: all about new life, right, and what better to represent
Speaker 2: that than with a.
Speaker 3: Little low egg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let us keep in mind, for anyone who's
Speaker 1: read the fantastic book Watershipped down the Hair the rabbit,
Speaker 1: the prints with a thousand enemies, the primary evolutionary, the
Speaker 1: primary evolutional like adaptation of the rabbit is not to fight.
Speaker 1: It is to reproduce. It's the word to breed like
Speaker 1: rabbits the other f word just so, and so it
Speaker 1: is no surprise that for a long time the egg
Speaker 1: and the rabbit have represented to humans, the idea of reproduction,
Speaker 1: of thriving, of rebirth and birth in general. So we
Speaker 1: know this because during the Neolithic Age in Europe and
Speaker 1: indeed Central Asia and the Near East, you would find
Speaker 1: burial sites with ancient humans who have been buried with
Speaker 1: rabbits with hairs, as they would call them Europe, as
Speaker 1: a way of symbolizing a passage, a rebirth, a resurgence.
Speaker 1: And then if you go the Neolithic Age was a
Speaker 1: long time ago, it's like the way we look at
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties now, so stop it.
Speaker 3: It's weird.
Speaker 1: It's true though, So over a thousand years after the
Speaker 1: Neolithic Age, during the Iron Age, we would see that
Speaker 1: there was this high regard for rabbits. You wouldn't eat
Speaker 1: a rabbit due to its religious significance. At least people
Speaker 1: like Julius Caesar talked trash about people in what we
Speaker 1: call Britain today. It was like, what these guys don't
Speaker 1: even eat rabbits because he got some weird religion about him.
Speaker 3: You ever eating rabbit as you have? Yes, I have.
Speaker 2: It's good lean. It definitely has a good what do
Speaker 2: they call it, a gamy kind of quality to it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, they're big boys. These hairs, too, were sacreds.
Speaker 2: To Aphrodite, the goddess of Love, said, there present fertility,
Speaker 2: fleet footedness, and I guess just general kind of I
Speaker 2: don't know life, because they are such vital creatures. Aphrodite's
Speaker 2: son Arrows, was often depicted carrying one around like like
Speaker 2: a familiar I don't think, slung over his shoulder like
Speaker 2: a carcass, as a symbol of unquenchable desire. And in
Speaker 2: the Greek world throughout the Renaissance, you often see hairs
Speaker 2: depicted in art as symbols of that kind of you know,
Speaker 2: vitality and sexuality, as well as in literature. The Virgin
Speaker 2: Mary actually in this era often is seen with a
Speaker 2: rabbit in tow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's more about.
Speaker 2: I believe, overcoming desire and and sort of having it
Speaker 2: in check.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's a white that's her white hair, and
Speaker 1: and it's it's cool. There's this symbolic shorthand throughout Western
Speaker 1: visual art, right depicting these things. We should get Oh,
Speaker 1: we should do an episode on why there are weird
Speaker 1: snails in Western art? Why there are you know, like
Speaker 1: harnospash alone, you know that's a cool thing we should
Speaker 1: look into the You nailed it with the idea of
Speaker 1: rabbit as shorthand for virility or the dedial thereof. What
Speaker 1: we see though, is that the connection between this rabbit,
Speaker 1: this bunny idea, and the concept of Easter comes much
Speaker 1: more recently. It isn't until like the fifteen sixteen hundreds
Speaker 1: in Germany that we see the idea of children hunting
Speaker 1: for Easter eggs hidden by the easter rabbit. So that
Speaker 1: like it sounds as though it is very very distant
Speaker 1: in history, but we have to recognize that in the
Speaker 1: larger context that is quite recent. You can see written
Speaker 1: accounts from England around the same time that also mentioned
Speaker 1: this Easter rabbit, and they talk about, uh, not just
Speaker 1: hunting Easter eggs. They talk about hunting actual hairs, actual rabbits,
Speaker 1: and then eating them, consuming them at Easter.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: This is where we go to something called the hair
Speaker 1: pie scramble.
Speaker 3: The hair pie scramble. We're gonna get the eggs.
Speaker 2: It's nice, I know, dude, We're gonna get into some big,
Speaker 2: some serious scrambles later. But the moment I heard that,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, is this some kind of like
Speaker 2: rabbit frickasy for tata situations.
Speaker 3: I'm on it. Oh please.
Speaker 2: By the way, can I just say that, you know
Speaker 2: the there's a musical called Hair spelled h a I R.
Speaker 2: And it's about like hippies, you know, in the sixties.
Speaker 2: There's also a musical about a giant rabbit that is
Speaker 2: an imaginary friend. I believe it might have started off
Speaker 2: as a as a player.
Speaker 3: A movie and that was made into a musical.
Speaker 2: For the longest time, I confused those two and thought
Speaker 2: Hair was the one about the giant rabbit, and it's not.
Speaker 2: I think it's Harvey. Sorry, Harvey is the giant rabbit.
Speaker 2: Hair h A I R Is about hippies. But today
Speaker 2: we're talking about the hair pie scramble, which was held
Speaker 2: at halitin a village in let's call it let Leicester Share.
Speaker 2: I think that's right in England, of course, and that
Speaker 2: involved eating a pie was made with hair meats, but
Speaker 2: no eggs, no, no scramble while people kind.
Speaker 3: Of I don't know, fought it out for a piece
Speaker 3: of the pie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were quote unquote scrambling for a slice. And
Speaker 1: just as people of yesteryear fought against what they saw
Speaker 1: as the pagan traditions of Halloween or other harvest festivals.
Speaker 1: There were local religious authorities who were fighting against the
Speaker 1: current celebration of Easter, which again, as I said at
Speaker 1: the top, has been very commodified and monetized. In seventeen
Speaker 1: ninety there was this English guy, he was a parson
Speaker 1: over at Halton, and he said.
Speaker 3: Oh, what's old isting?
Speaker 1: You guys gotta stop eating these you gotta stop scrambling
Speaker 1: for this rabbit pie. This is not what Christianity is about.
Speaker 1: And everybody said, boo boo, unto you put him in
Speaker 1: the pie, put him in your ploy. And the custom
Speaker 1: continues to this day.
Speaker 2: Dude, I'm sure you all have heard of the idea of,
Speaker 2: like you know, in the I guess the more dark ages,
Speaker 2: the idea of making live birds into a pie, or
Speaker 2: putting birds into Of course, there's that four and twenty
Speaker 2: black birds. I saw a thing about it on Instagram
Speaker 2: the other day and it occurred to me, wouldn't those
Speaker 2: birds just like crap all in the pie and just
Speaker 2: like render it completely inedible just for the purposes.
Speaker 3: Of a look at the beds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we usually starved them before we put them in
Speaker 1: the pie.
Speaker 3: You did, you and your what cadre of Illuminati.
Speaker 1: The four and twenty.
Speaker 2: No, no, but no, this is these kinds of This
Speaker 2: is a very old English type stuff here.
Speaker 3: It's almost like a cakewalk, but ther it is. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like that, I mean a little bit right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And this idea of eating the hair, it's sort of
Speaker 1: it's it's a way to navigate and approach mortality, is
Speaker 1: it not like the eating of the hair the fantastically
Speaker 1: reproductive animal? You could just associate that with folk traditions
Speaker 1: of scaring away witches at Easter. With a shout out
Speaker 1: to Todd Thompson t O. K. Thompson for Smithsonian Magazine.
Speaker 1: You can see there was this long standing belief that
Speaker 1: a witches, warlocks, whatever you want to call them, would
Speaker 1: shape shift and take the form of a hair and
Speaker 1: do what we would call Dennis the Menace level mischief. Right,
Speaker 1: They would steal milk from your cows. They they would
Speaker 1: also you know, I guess it's weird to think of
Speaker 1: this in the same way you would think of were wolves,
Speaker 1: right or unsealy totally the fair folk like they would
Speaker 1: they would apparently hop into your house undercover night. We're
Speaker 1: an audio show, so I'm doing like a little rabbit. Hot,
Speaker 1: he's got a little little hoofs you know, a little good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's floppity for evil. And they thought these witches
Speaker 1: would suck out the life energy of sleeping people and
Speaker 1: deliver unto them some sort of infection, a sickness, possibly
Speaker 1: a contagion.
Speaker 3: So if you're.
Speaker 1: Eating the rabbit, then you might be eating a witch.
Speaker 1: You're taking their power.
Speaker 2: Kind of reminds me that chuop Ofcabra a little bit,
Speaker 2: the old goat sucker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 2: And the funny thing is, like a lot of these
Speaker 2: kind of fables or folkloric kind of explanations of phenomena. Uh,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of commonalities between cultures in terms of
Speaker 2: like the types of things that are trying to be explained.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if we if we look at this context, then
Speaker 1: what we find is the idea of the spring equinox
Speaker 1: is symbolically in opposition to the idea of uh, life
Speaker 1: draining or death or mortality, the witches, the hard winter, Uh,
Speaker 1: the what is it? What do they call it in
Speaker 1: Song Device and Fire Game of Thrones? I think maybe
Speaker 1: just the long night? Yeah, there it is, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But again, we talked about this at the top, that
Speaker 2: this struggle between light and dark and heat and fire
Speaker 2: and ice and all that stuff tale as old as time, classic,
Speaker 2: you know, fodder for these sort of like massive epic tales.
Speaker 2: And it's because it all dates back to the idea
Speaker 2: of you know, kind of fearing, like living in a
Speaker 2: time where you weren't sure if the lights were ever
Speaker 2: going to come back on, and just praying that they would,
Speaker 2: and that usually involved worshiping some sort of deity, and
Speaker 2: these crafty Christians just sort of co opted all of
Speaker 2: this stuff and replaced you know, some sort of light
Speaker 2: and darkness or winter and summer deity with good old
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ to kind of represent it it all.
Speaker 3: It was sort of a catch all for this stuff.
Speaker 2: Like you said before, these folks knew it, folks who'd
Speaker 2: been practicing other kinds of religions.
Speaker 1: They were Christians, they just didn't have the words. So
Speaker 1: let us take over your country and extract all the resources. Look,
Speaker 1: history is long, it is continuing. If you are listening
Speaker 1: to this show today, then you are one of the
Speaker 1: authors of what people will call history in the future.
Speaker 1: And with that we must acknowledge that the celebration of
Speaker 1: Easter is indeed a global phenomenon. Noel Max, what if
Speaker 1: we end today's episode with some shout outs around the
Speaker 1: world to celebrations of Easter, because just like Christmas, just
Speaker 1: like Halloween, not every country nor regions celebrates Easter in
Speaker 1: the same way.
Speaker 2: Right, And you know, we let off today with some
Speaker 2: excellent perspective from an Australian writer whose name we love,
Speaker 2: Penny Travers. It turns out in Penny's country there is
Speaker 2: a tradition that is designed to raise awareness for the
Speaker 2: dwindling population of one of these one of myriad bizarre
Speaker 2: at least, you know, to us looking creatures, wonderful, you know,
Speaker 2: stuff that seems like it belongs that of a fantasy novel,
Speaker 2: something called the bill b which is a tiny marsupial
Speaker 2: whose numbers have been in danger, and so chocolate tears
Speaker 2: in Australia have taken to instead of an Easter Bunny,
Speaker 2: they're rocking the Easter Bilby and crafting chocolate into you know,
Speaker 2: little effigies, I guess edible effigies of these little rabbit
Speaker 2: sized creatures.
Speaker 1: Love it, love it. And if you are still if
Speaker 1: you're still caught on the eggs. Folks, if you're like guys,
Speaker 1: I've heard too much about rabbits today, I need some
Speaker 1: eggs in Easter. Then you want to go to France
Speaker 1: on the Monday after Easter, whichever our king time that is.
Speaker 1: In your neck of the woods. There is a town
Speaker 1: called ho Haux and they they will make are a
Speaker 1: gigantic like Guinness World Record level omelet. Four five hundred
Speaker 1: eggs into this pan. They make an omelet. They serve
Speaker 1: over one thousand people every year. Each family contributes. They
Speaker 1: crowdsource this. It's a beautiful thing. They break the eggs
Speaker 1: in their home in the morning, they gather in the
Speaker 1: main square. They make this omelet. And if you've never
Speaker 1: been to France, if you've only had an omelet in
Speaker 1: one country, got to tell you the top, the top
Speaker 1: level omelet technology in the world is France and Japan.
Speaker 2: They really love their eggs in France and Japan. They
Speaker 2: also I swear the best of another thing that I've
Speaker 2: ever had in my life came from France, and that
Speaker 2: is but my friend, unbelievable butter.
Speaker 3: They got there.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's so many different types of eggs
Speaker 2: and I always have found it interesting and a little
Speaker 2: morbid maybe that these symbols of you know, life and
Speaker 2: these literal vessels of life are just devoured. Uh, And
Speaker 2: it's totally fine. In fact, the case in point here,
Speaker 2: it's actually almost like a respectful ritual, you know, that
Speaker 2: honors life by literally consuming it. I've always kind of
Speaker 2: felt there was a component of like, let's take in
Speaker 2: the life force of.
Speaker 3: These things, you know, into our bodies. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That's why, uh, that's why we love it. Ortologue.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I could never My fear of birds prohibits
Speaker 2: it alone. But oh really quickly, so I had to
Speaker 2: add the bilby that we talked about from Australia.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks like ma Adeeb.
Speaker 2: If you've seen the New the New Dune movie, where
Speaker 2: Madib is the name that Timothy Channamar's character takes on,
Speaker 2: it's this little little desert mouse that kind of looks
Speaker 2: like a little mini kangaroo with big ears.
Speaker 3: And that is what the bilbie looks like.
Speaker 1: And if you're ever on an Easter egg hunt in Greece,
Speaker 1: you may notice something that I would not as a
Speaker 1: color blind person. All the eggs on your East egg
Speaker 1: hunt in Greece are going to be colored red or
Speaker 1: like gray for me, because red is the color of life.
Speaker 1: It as such is a representation of the blood of
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, and that's that's where they're further syncretizing the religion.
Speaker 1: We also we also have a crime wave in Norway.
Speaker 1: Every Yeah, well, you know, they love we. We all
Speaker 1: love not we, but folks.
Speaker 3: Love their true crime.
Speaker 2: They love their murder mysteries, both real and fictional, and
Speaker 2: Norway is no different. Television channels run a lot of
Speaker 2: crime specials and you know, morbid stuff like that. And
Speaker 2: also it is a peak time for the publication of
Speaker 2: new detective novels. Just around Eastern you going to see
Speaker 2: like a whole cavalcade of these type of procedural crime
Speaker 2: novels coming out. I don't really understand the connection there.
Speaker 2: Maybe once again, it has something to do with that
Speaker 2: birth and death cycle and they have decided to go
Speaker 2: with the death part of it.
Speaker 3: That's so metal.
Speaker 2: Norway knows how to get metal. It was something about
Speaker 2: milk cartons I believe as well.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1: The milk cartons will carry short like flash fiction detective
Speaker 1: stories in place of a missing person that.
Speaker 3: Have been abducted for demonic rituals now days.
Speaker 1: And we don't we don't get the milk carton Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't get the milk carton stories anymore in the US. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this was this, this whole phenomenon is uh. It
Speaker 1: originates in crime novel from nineteen twenty three set on
Speaker 1: the Bergen Railway. What we're saying is there's a ton
Speaker 1: of fascinating history about Easter, and we have so much
Speaker 1: more to explore. In the meantime, you can check out
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. We have a
Speaker 1: YouTube video called the Surprising Origins of Easter. We have
Speaker 1: not delved into the full mythology leading to the Christian
Speaker 1: interpretation of this holiday, but we hope you had a
Speaker 1: good one. Whether or not you celebrate, people are a
Speaker 1: little bit nicer around holidays.
Speaker 3: I find, you know what I mean, like people a
Speaker 3: little bit cooler.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's been in the back of my head,
Speaker 2: this whole conversation. I haven't brought it up, but I'm
Speaker 2: gonna just make it my last thing.
Speaker 3: Set that fire.
Speaker 2: It's just kind of interesting to me that somehow both
Speaker 2: the secular versions or I guess Tremont of both Christmas
Speaker 2: meaning Santa Claus kind of egregious commercialism, gift giving and
Speaker 2: all that, and Easter just bizarro Easter bunnies and chocolate
Speaker 2: eggs and dyeing, you know, hard boiled eggs and all
Speaker 2: this stuff that comes along that are kind of also
Speaker 2: embraced by hardcore Christians. Like there's part of me that
Speaker 2: would think that the real you know, christianist of the
Speaker 2: Christian would kind of eschew a lot of that stuff
Speaker 2: and sort of turn their nose up at it. But
Speaker 2: it seems to me, at least from where I stand,
Speaker 2: that they're all about those aspects as well, maybe because
Speaker 2: they think it's a way of getting people into the fold.
Speaker 2: You know, you start by being attracted by the Easter
Speaker 2: egg hunts. The next thing, you know, you're a mass
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, And you know that goes into the idea
Speaker 1: of social autonomy and the individual's interactions with a group,
Speaker 1: which makes me sound like a crazy academic, which perhaps
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 3: You're not crazy.
Speaker 2: You've got a background for sure a bit, but I
Speaker 2: just wonder, you know, all along the way and this chat,
Speaker 2: it's kind of been like this is almost feels to
Speaker 2: me like it still could be looked at as recruitment tools,
Speaker 2: you know, much like the whole religious secretism was about
Speaker 2: getting people to you know, come over to their side
Speaker 2: religiously speaking without fully.
Speaker 3: Realizing what it meant.
Speaker 2: And I'm just wondering if, like, maybe Christians are cool
Speaker 2: with all this stuff, A because it's fun and be
Speaker 2: because it sort of sometimes gets people in the door.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll see youth group folks.
Speaker 2: Hey, I remember going to youth group for the free tacos.
Speaker 3: That's why I went to youth group.
Speaker 1: Sounds cool. Yeah, We've got we have so much more
Speaker 1: to explore. We also have We also have some commentary
Speaker 1: that me interests you about the secular origins of the
Speaker 1: depiction of Santa Claus, which is coming up on a
Speaker 1: future episode about cartoons and propaganda. Spoil is but do
Speaker 1: never do. Please tune in, uh and maybe we'll do
Speaker 1: it etymology of the phrase spoilers. I think it would
Speaker 1: take us about six minutes. But with that, we want
Speaker 1: to give a big thanks to everybody's tuning in. We
Speaker 1: hope that you had an excellent weekend, whether or not
Speaker 1: you celebrate some derivation of Easter. We want to let's
Speaker 1: see Noel. I guess we got to think. First off,
Speaker 1: we got to thank our super producer research associate mister
Speaker 1: Max Williams.
Speaker 2: And of course Max's brother Alex, who composed this theme.
Speaker 2: I like to thank my personal Lord and Savior JC.
Speaker 2: I'm glad he has risen, he has risen. Indeed, I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: I'm joking. I grew up in the church. I'm allowed
Speaker 2: to make those jokes, and we never you know, poopoo
Speaker 2: anybody's religious beliefs. Your religious beliefs are your own. This
Speaker 2: is just such an interesting trajectory. Somehow we ended up
Speaker 2: with people in bunny costumes. We're standing on the side
Speaker 2: of the road waving at cars, which I just saw
Speaker 2: the video, he said, it is more than a little unsettling.
Speaker 1: I'd also like to thank everybody dresses up in a
Speaker 1: big rabbit costume. It means the world to me when
Speaker 1: I see you all on the streets. New seasonal Cryptid
Speaker 1: just dropped. That's how I feel about it. Big, big
Speaker 1: thanks to Bahamas or aj Bahamas. Jacobs the puzzler.
Speaker 2: Soon to be appearing right here on your regularly scheduled program.
Speaker 1: A Catching Old Brown making an appearance on his show
Speaker 1: as well, The Puzzler. Big big thanks, of course to
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland aka The Twister. I got a cat in
Speaker 1: the way, keep it in next, Big big thanks to
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland ak The Twister, famously the guy who will
Speaker 1: show up as an adult at children's Easter egg hunts
Speaker 1: and compete with them.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.