Re: Wassail

["Renee Rosen" <lilitu@cjnetworks.com>]

On 10 Jul 97 at 17:23, Spbarker@aol.com wrote:

> When it comes down to it, most of the major Christian festivals are
> just thinly disguided pagan ones.  In fact, they didn't even bother
> to come up with a new name for Easter (it's named after the pagan
> goddess Eastre).

[I'll keep this short, since Pagan topics are semi-off-topic here, 
unless they pertain to KaTe--if you want to continue this discussion, 
take it off list or to a Pagan forum. I wouldn't post this at 
all, except bad etymology is one of my pet peeves, so you'll 
have to suffer through this post. *grin* Thanks!]

Actually, that's only true in English and some other Germanic
languages, though not all--the word for Easter in Dutch is "Pas,"
for instance. The word for "Easter" in many languages comes from
Passover, the Jewish holiday that is the direct precursor to Easter
(since the Last Supper was a Passover Seder). Even in English, 
there's the word "Paschal" meaning "Easter-time." Passover is around 
the time of the Spring Equinox (and is probably originally an Equinox 
festival, with historical "justifications" added later, since most 
Jewish holidays are originally seasonal in origin), so some Germanic 
speakers used their name for the Spring Equinox festival for Easter. 
(The bunnies and eggs are probably Pagan in origin, though.) This is 
similar to "Yule" being a name for Christmas; Yule was originally a 
12 day Germanic feast.

Renee
lilitu@cjnetworks.com