Winifred Hodge Rose
Note: Here is an Eostre / Ostara Blot ceremony making use of information in this essay: https://heathensoullore.net/eostre-ostara-ceremony/
The Timing of Eostre / Ostara
According to the 7th century Christian monk and scholar, the Venerable Bede, the Anglo-Saxons honored Eostre by naming an entire month after her: Eostre-monath, which began on the first full moon after the spring equinox. This timing coincidentally overlapped with the calculations for Easter (which falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, in the Western church). This is how the Christian holiday came to be named after a Pagan Goddess in England (Easter) and Germany (Ostern). In all other countries, even in Scandinavia and Holland, this holiday is named after some version of ‘passover’ or ‘paschal’ tide, because the crucifixion and resurrection occurred during the sacred time of Passover in the Jewish calendar. Only in the ancestral languages of English and German was the devotion to the Spring and Dawn Goddess and her holy month so strong that the name of her month was attached to the holy day: Easter in English, Ostern in German.
These names are both derived from words for ‘east’, relating to dawn and springtime. The name Eostre is cognate to the Greek Goddess of the Dawn, Eos. It is also meaningful to address this Dawn-Goddess by her reconstructed Proto-Indo-European name, Hausos. She has many other names in other Indo-European pantheons, some of them closely related.
Though some older scholars doubted the existence of a Goddess Eostre, more recent scholarship has offered quite firm support for the idea. In 1958 votive stones dedicated to the Matronae Austriahenae, Matron-Goddesses or demi-goddesses were discovered, dating from the time of the Roman Empire. Their name, also derived from the word for ‘east,’ helped to solidify scholarly acceptance of widespread belief in a Goddess named after the East using word-roots such as Austr-, Oster-, Eostre, Eos-, whose indications extend into Slavic, Greek, Roman, Hindu, and other Indo-European traditions. All of the related names of this Goddess refer to the East and the Dawn, and the associated season of Spring. Presumably, she was also associated with the burgeoning fertility of Spring.
According to Bede, Eostre or Eastre was the name of a month, beginning on the full moon after the Spring Equinox, during which she was celebrated by feasts (and presumably merriment!). I have read modern Heathen authors who believe the Anglo-Saxon months began on the day of the New Moon, and others who state it began on the Full Moon. I incline toward the latter, myself, for two reasons. One is that Bede called the month that began around the Autumn Equinox “Winterfylleth” or Winterfilleth, meaning the Winter Full Moon. Anglo-Saxons, Norse, and other old Heathens divided the year into two seasons, winter and summer, beginning around the Autumn and the Spring Equinoxes, respectively. Thus, if the first month of the Winter half-year was called after the full moon, one would assume that it, and the other months of the calendar, indeed began on the night of the full moon. The association of Heathen Eastre or Eostre with the Christian Paschal-tide that Bede discussed also depends on the date of the full moon, and leads to the conclusion that Eostre-monath began on the night of the full moon as well.
This Wikipedia page has detailed and interesting information about Eostre and related Goddesses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%92ostre
That page also discusses the association of the Hare or Rabbit with Eostre, without firm conclusions about how old that association is. Though I have not found solid proof of this, I like to think that the fertile Hare, who runs wild and free with March madness at this time of year, was the sacred animal of Eostre and Ostara (it is called the Oster-Hase in German). Hence the ‘Easter Bunny’, whose behavior is a good deal more sedate and child-oriented than is the wild Hare with its spring frenzy of fighting, mating, and mad dancing. And if fertility was and is indeed a feature of Eostre / Ostara, the Hare or Rabbit is certainly an appropriate symbol for that!
In 2025, the beginning of Eostre-monath is April 12, the first full moon after the Spring Equinox on March 20. I realize that many people like to celebrate Ostara on the Equinox itself, and of course there’s nothing wrong with that, but for myself, I like to celebrate her on the first day of her month, according to Anglo-Saxon tradition as we know it from Bede.
Eostre Experiences
There’s a long tradition in some places in Europe of climbing a hill or mountain before the sun rises on Easter morning, to greet the dawn on that day; I did that myself when I lived in Bavaria in the 1980s, though I was unaware of modern Heathenry then. I like to think of this as a continuation of Heathen practice: greeting Ostara on the mountain-top as her holy springtime month begins.
Years ago, before I knew about modern Heathenry, I experienced a beautiful dawn scene in the Alps. Wisps of white mist rose from wet grass and twined in the dawn light and breeze as though they were dancing, while the rising sun shot pearly gleams through the mist and reflected off boulders and rocks. This scene stayed in my memory, and years later when I wished to write a song for Eostre, this memory inspired me. I was also inspired by the lovely Anglo-Saxon word aelf-sciene or elf-sheen, describing the shining beauty of the Elven-kind. The wisps of rising mist, pearl-shot by the sun, seemed to me to be elf-sheen maidens dancing in the dawn light, gathering around their beloved Lady of the Dawn. This was the beautiful scene that led to my song “Ostara’s Dance,” given below.
In this song, I address the Heathen Spring / Dawn Goddess as ‘Ostara,’ because it is the most familiar and because the name scans better in the song. For myself, I like to call her by her Anglo-Saxon name, Eastre or Eostre. Just as a little extra note of meaning: Ostara is described as “lithe,” or slender, supple, graceful, in the chorus of the song. That term ‘lithe’ refers forward in time to the celebration of the Summer Solstice, which in Anglo-Saxon was called “Litha” or the “Lithe-Days,” the soft, smooth days of grace and beauty that occur during Midsummer in the northern climes, contrasting with the rough weather of winter that brought much suffering and illness.
Ostara’s Dance
1. Ostara comes in rushing swiftness, dawntide gold,
Her glowing brightness, cool and clear, we now behold!
She glides between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing treads the mountain’s bones.
2. Her flashing gaze, her soul’s clear main, make bright the air,
No Elf-queen mighty, full of grace, could be so fair!
She glides between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing treads the mountain’s bones.
3. With floating grace upon the sward the Elf-maidens come,
To spin about the Springtime Queen, their souls’ sweet home.
She glides between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing treads the mountain’s bones.
4. Ostara, Lady, come to us, your folk do call,
Your springtime gifts, your blessing give, to one and all!
You glide between the shimmering stones
With gentlest step, our lithe maiden glowing:
With blessing tread the mountain’s bones.
Sung to the tune of a carol “King Jesus hath a garden full of diverse flowers,” based on a thirteenth-century Dutch tune. Here is a recording of the tune if you want to learn it (my apologies for the horribly long link address, but I find this recording pleasant and undistracting, easier for Heathen listening than some of them are.) I sing my song at a faster, livelier pace than the recording does.
Lady of Light, Spring, and Growth
Here are a few verses from a longer poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909), an English poet. The poem, Atalanta in Calydon, is in honor of Atalanta of Greek mythology, a huntress, swift runner, and devotee of the Goddess Artemis. I have used these verses for years as inspiration for my own devotions to Eostre / Eastre / Ostara / Hausos, our Goddess of dawn, spring, growth, and fertility. I hope you, too, might find them inspiring to celebrate her!
I imagine the references to her bow and arrows in the poem as the rays of light that first strike over the horizon in the east, and Eostre’s ‘prey’ being the shadows and cold of winter. The swift running of her feet over the land leaves behind her the energy of fertility and growth, soaking into the soil. Frozen streams and rivers break up into floes of ice, rushing and booming through ravines. Wind roars and sings through the mountain passes. Animals come out from their dens and burrows to see what’s going on and seek their mates. Birds return, calling on the wind. All is energy, light, movement, growth! Hail to you, Eostre!
1. When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain.
2. Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect, lady of light,
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamour of waters, and with might.
3. Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,
Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;
For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,
Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
4. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,
Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?
O that man’s heart were as fire and could spring to her,
Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!
5. For the stars and the winds are unto her
As raiment, as songs of the harp-player,
For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,
And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.
6. For winter’s rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows, and sins;
The days dividing lover from lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
7. And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
Excerpted from Atalanta in Calydon, by Algernon Charles Swinburne
As we celebrate Ostara, let us honor Eostre’s power to bring renewal and fertility, to release us from the constraints of winter and set free our urge to create, to celebrate, to renew our lives. Hail the Spring and the Dawn: Hail Ostara!