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In Northern Europe, Easter imagery often involves [[easter Bunny|hares and rabbits]]. The first scholar to make a connection between the goddess Eostre and hares was Adolf Holtzmann in his book ''Deutsche Mythologie''. Holtzmann wrote of the tradition, "the Easter Hare is inexplicable to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara; just as there is a hare on the statue of [[Abnoba]]." Citing folk [[Easter customs]] in [[Leicestershire]], England, where "the profits of the land called Harecrop Leys were applied to providing a meal which was thrown on the ground at the 'Hare-pie Bank'", late 19th-century scholar [[Charles Isaac Elton]] speculated on a connection between these customs and the worship of {{lang|ang|Ēostre|italic=no}}. In his late 19th-century study of the hare in folk custom and mythology, Charles J. Billson cited numerous incidents of folk customs involving hares around the Easter season in Northern Europe. Billson said that "whether there was a goddess named {{lang|ang|Ēostre|italic=no}}, or not, and whatever connection the hare may have had with the ritual of Saxon or British worship, there are good grounds for believing that the sacredness of this animal reaches back into an age still more remote, where it is probably a very important part of the great Spring Festival of the prehistoric inhabitants of this island."<ref name="BILLSON448"/>
→イースターヘアーとの関連性
=== イースターヘアーとの関連性 ===
北欧では、イースターのイメージとして、ウサギが登場することが多い<ref name="Bott 2011">Bott Adrian, The modern myth of the Easter bunny, The Guardian, 2011-04-23, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/apr/23/easter-pagan-roots</ref>。女神エオステレとウサギを最初に結びつけたのは、アドルフ・ホルツマンの著書『Deutsche Mythologie（ドイツ神話）』である。ホルツマンはこの伝承について、「イースターのウサギは私には説明できないが、ちょうどアブノバの像にウサギが描かれているように、おそらくウサギはオスターラの聖なる動物だったのだろう。」と書いている。19世紀末の学者チャールズ・アイザック・エルトンは、イギリス・レスターシャー州の復活祭の風習として、「ハレクロップ・リーという土地の利益を、『ハレパイ・バンク』で地面に投げつける食事の提供に充てた」ことを挙げ、これらの風習と「Ēostre」の崇拝の関連について推測している<ref>Elton, Charles Isaac, Isaac Elton, Origins of English History, Nature, 1882, volume25, issue648, page391, doi:10.1038/025501a0 |bibcode=1882Natur..25..501T, s2cid:4097604, https://archive.org/stream/originsofenglis00elto#page/390/mode/2up/search/harecrop</ref><ref group="私注">兎の女神に関する祭祀では、女神に関するものの破壊を伴うものが多いと感じる。</ref>。19世紀末、チャールズ・J・ビルソンは、民俗風習や神話におけるウサギに関する研究の中で、北欧の復活祭の時期にウサギが登場する民俗風習を数多く紹介している。。19世紀末、チャールズ・J・ビルソンは、民俗風習や神話におけるウサギに関する研究の中で、北欧の復活祭の時期にウサギが登場する民俗風習を数多く紹介している。ビルソンは、「エオステレという女神がいたのかいないのか、また、うさぎがサクソン人やイギリス人の崇拝の儀式とどのような関係があったとしても、この動物の神聖さはさらに遠い時代まで遡ることができると信じるに足る根拠がある。」と述べた<ref name="BILLSON448"/>。
Adolf Holtzmann had also speculated that "the hare must once have been a bird, because it lays eggs" in modern German folklore. From this statement, numerous later sources built a modern legend in which the goddess Eostre transformed a bird into an egg-laying hare.<ref name=Winick2016>Winick, Stephen. [https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/04/ostara-and-the-hare/ Ostara and the Hare: Not Ancient, but Not As Modern As Some Skeptics Think]. ''Folklife Today'', 28 Apr 2016. Accessed 8 May 2019 at https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2016/04/ostara-and-the-hare/</ref> A response to a question about the origins of Easter hares in the 8 June 1889 issue of the journal ''American Notes and Queries'' stated: "In Germany and among the Pennsylvania Germans toy rabbits or hares made of canton flannel stuffed with cotton are given as gifts on Easter morning. The children are told that this Osh’ter has laid the Easter eggs. This curious idea is thus explained: The hare was originally a bird, and was changed into a quadruped by the goddess Ostara; in gratitude to Ostara or Eastre, the hare exercises its original bird function to lay eggs for the goddess on her festal day."<ref>''American Notes and Queries'', [https://books.google.com/books?id=-g48AQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA64&ots=l0_sPgX_SR&pg=PA64#v=onepage&q&f=false June 8, 1889, pp. 64-65].</ref> According to folklorist Stephen Winick, by 1900, many popular sources had picked up the story of Eostre and the hare. One described the story as one of the oldest in mythology, "despite the fact that it was then less than twenty years old."<ref name=Winick2016/>
