<P> Chocolate Easter Bunny molds from Alsace Musée du pain d'épices </P> <P> In his 1835 Deutsche Mythologie, Jacob Grimm states "The Easter Hare is unintelligible to me, but probably the hare was the sacred animal of Ostara". This proposed association was repeated by other authors including Charles Isaac Elton and Charles J Billson . In 1961 Christina Hole wrote, "The hare was the sacred beast of Eastre (or Eostre), a Saxon goddess of Spring and of the dawn ." The belief that Ēostre had a hare companion who became the Easter Bunny was popularized when it was presented as fact in the BBC documentary Shadow of the Hare (1993). </P> <P> The Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore however states "...there is no shred of evidence" that hares were sacred to Ēostre, noting that Bede does not associate her with any animal . </P> <P> Sarah Ben Breathnach in Mrs Sharp's Traditions (1990) provides an origin story for the Easter Bunny: "According to legend, Eostre's favorite animal was a large handsome bird, which in a fit of anger she turned into a hare ." Another version of this story, in which Ēostre transforms the bird into a hare in an act of mercy, was written by Jean - Andrew Dickmann and appeared in Cricket magazine . Both Breathnach and Dickmann present their respective' transformed bird' stories as if they were legend, though no earlier version of either has been attested . </P>

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