Unholy Terror

[00:00] I think I'm ready to move on to just different, different realms of wisdom in the under Googles.
[00:07] What do you got for us this week?
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[00:35] I was, I was, you know, we have a separate feed for under Googles, right?
[00:39] So we've gone back and mined out all the under Googles over the years.
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[00:49] I was listening to this year and it occurred to me that even though we've done a lot of holidays,
[00:57] I don't think we've done Easter.
[00:59] I do not believe that I know the origin of the Easter Bunny.
[01:05] And I think we should figure it out right now.
[01:07] Never have any thoughts.
[01:11] Easter Bunny.
[01:12] Why does the Easter Bunny exist?
[01:14] I mean, they remind me, like, I don't know, we've done a bunch of these.
[01:18] Yeah, we've done a bunch of these.
[01:19] Where did like the Tooth Fairy come from?
[01:21] So the Tooth Fairy was, gosh, that was it had a bunch of different origins.
[01:27] But yeah, every every culture had some sort of sort of stealing children's teeth superstition around the teeth.
[01:38] Yeah.
[01:39] Yeah.
[01:40] Yeah.
[01:41] Like there was I think it was in Japan.
[01:42] They like take the tooth and like put it under the house to ward off evil spirits.
[01:47] Sometimes they take the mouse teeth because it's because mouse teeth like grow forever or something like that.
[01:53] And it's like good luck or something like that.
[01:57] But yeah, I think the idea was yet to either ward off evil spirits or bring in good spirits.
[02:03] Yeah.
[02:04] And culturally, it made sense that it happened around the world because every child has to go through the trauma of losing a tooth.
[02:10] And so they've all kind of created this stuff.
[02:14] Was the fairy specific to something, though?
[02:17] Oh, thanks.
[02:20] Because there was there was there was the magic thing.
[02:23] Yeah.
[02:25] Because there was like the the the, you know, tooth mouse or whatever.
[02:29] You're right. But like there was like the fairy was specific.
[02:32] I mean, because what was the like Santa was a Nordic elf.
[02:36] Right.
[02:37] That was that.
[02:38] Mm hmm.
[02:40] Everybody.
[02:43] Easter bunny.
[02:44] I feel like is a pagan thing.
[02:46] Are they all pagan things sort of.
[02:50] Yeah, sure.
[02:51] Aren't we all are we all pagans when it really comes out to it?
[02:54] No.
[02:56] No, but I feel like Easter.
[02:59] The Easter holiday basically was co-opted from the pagan.
[03:04] It's Vernal Equinox sort of festival.
[03:07] I thought of like fertility and rebirth and all of this stuff and and.
[03:15] Rabbits, as you know, as a rabbit owner, Coalson are.
[03:21] Notoriously fertile creatures.
[03:25] Hmm.
[03:26] So I sort of always assumed that that's where I came from that that,
[03:29] you know.
[03:30] So the rabbits are the representative of fertility sort of in this.
[03:35] The situation.
[03:36] Yeah.
[03:37] Do they have similar to the rabbit?
[03:39] Great.
[03:40] That's definitely why the egg way we do like egg hunts around Easter.
[03:44] Right.
[03:45] Because the egg is the sign of the new.
[03:49] Generation or whatever, right?
[03:52] Well, I mean, eggs make sense, right?
[03:54] In the sense that, yeah, it is.
[03:56] You're about to hatch from something.
[03:58] There's birth.
[03:59] That has nothing to do with rabbits at all.
[04:01] Right.
[04:02] No, that's what I'm saying.
[04:03] The eggs make sense.
[04:05] The rabbits are connected because rabbits don't lay eggs.
[04:09] But I suppose rabbits are.
[04:12] Fertile.
[04:13] Well, but I mean, that begs the question.
[04:17] Why eggs?
[04:20] Hmm.
[04:23] Which came first, the rabbit or the egg?
[04:26] It's an age old question.
[04:28] Very good question.
[04:29] Well played, sir.
[04:32] Do you think that our pagan ancestors had some kind of rabbit chase or
[04:36] something?
[04:37] Hmm.
[04:38] Yeah.
[04:39] There's there's probably something.
[04:42] Didn't didn't a lot.
[04:43] I feel like a lot of this stuff ended up being weird like key parties,
[04:48] like pagan parties.
[04:51] Haven't we gone through several of those in our watching man.
[04:57] We've done pagan parties before.
[05:01] And I feel like the vernal equinox was definitely that.
[05:05] So yeah, what if like like you send out like somebody's got to take
[05:12] their clothes off and chase a rabbit catches it like gets to have sex with
[05:17] whoever they want or something like that.
[05:20] I think I think I think Coney's are pretty good eating.
[05:27] Yeah.
[05:28] And they're probably easier to hunt when they're distracted by mating or
[05:34] taking care of their kids or the kids are stupid.
[05:37] So kids are stupid kids.
[05:39] Kids are stupid.
[05:40] Rabbits aren't super smart.
[05:44] Dumb is a kid rabbit quick.
[05:47] They are super quick.
[05:49] I mean, it's either like this or like big sugar, right?
[05:53] Well, okay.
[05:54] So it's funny because I we were thinking about we were doing the
[05:58] Valentine's Day one.
[05:59] You know, I was listening to that recently and Harper was like,
[06:03] this is definitely about Hallmark.
[06:05] And we know we argued and we like, no, there's got to be some
[06:09] history to it.
[06:10] I think in this sense, this is definitely Hallmark.
[06:12] I think that Hallmark made up the Easter Bunny because it doesn't
[06:17] make any sense.
[06:18] It's just it's not connected to anything.
[06:20] Why is it?
[06:21] Why is it a bunny?
[06:22] Why is a rabbit carrying around eggs?
[06:23] I think this is created by Hallmark.
[06:25] Or who's the who's the egg guy that the who's big egg?
[06:33] Is that what you're asking?
[06:34] I like the the people make the egg decoration.
[06:39] Yeah, I know what you're talking about.
[06:41] Like Cadbury.
[06:43] No, no, they make the chocolate eggs.
[06:46] Yeah, the cream filled chocolate.
[06:48] But like it's a puzzle.
[06:51] No, it starts with a P.
[06:53] Right.
[06:54] Like those little kits that you can get with the wire thing
[06:57] and you dip your egg in there.
[06:59] Yeah.
[07:00] That's good.
[07:01] What about peeps?
[07:02] Is it big peeps?
[07:03] Is that who made this up?
[07:05] Big peeps.
[07:06] Because they have they have the chickens to the little chicks
[07:09] and that makes sense.
[07:10] Right.
[07:11] The chicks make sense because they're connected to the egg.
[07:14] That's exactly why they wouldn't have the creativity
[07:16] to come up with the Easter bunny.
[07:20] Big peeps have been planted safe for a long time.
[07:24] Yeah.
[07:25] Oh, man.
[07:29] Could there be an outside link of like something?
[07:37] I mean, you're a biblical scholar.
[07:39] Sure.
[07:41] You've done so well on that.
[07:43] Do rabbits play a role?
[07:45] And like are there stories of rabbits?
[07:51] No, I think Aesop is big on the rabbits.
[07:55] I don't think the Bible's big on rabbits.
[07:58] Maybe it goes to the rabbit's foot, which is good luck.
[08:02] It's spring.
[08:04] We need good luck.
[08:06] So there's rabbits around.
[08:08] Good harvest.
[08:09] Yeah.
[08:14] I feel like a lot of this stuff does have its roots
[08:16] in like northern European Christianity sort of stuff.
[08:21] Yeah.
[08:22] This just feels weirdly American to me.
[08:24] OK.
[08:25] OK.
[08:26] Well, because we talked about if this is, you know,
[08:32] you're right, Jason, this is a pagan holiday.
[08:35] The Easter is put on top of a pagan holiday, right?
[08:37] And Jesus rising from the dead is about the rebirth
[08:42] and spring and all that stuff kind of works into that.
[08:47] And rabbits do have their litter in spring.
[08:50] And I suppose that makes sense.
[08:53] I'm just trying to figure out when somebody did that.
[08:57] Was that the were the pagans doing it?
[09:01] And when when the Christians put Easter on top that they just
[09:05] kind of inherited the rabbit or is this like America?
[09:09] Like this is is this like Coke?
[09:13] Yeah, yeah.
[09:14] And you could imagine, you know,
[09:18] big sugar trying to play off the popularity of Bugs Bunny
[09:23] or something like that.
[09:25] Kids like rabbits.
[09:26] Let's just start throwing rabbits on our packaging
[09:30] for these candies or something.
[09:32] Yeah, big sugar.
[09:33] OK.
[09:34] I like it.
[09:35] Yeah, because chickens are not that cute.
[09:37] They're not.
[09:38] And, you know, and basically dumb.
[09:40] I beg to differ.
[09:41] They're stupid, but I think they're cute.
[09:43] OK. Chicks are cute.
[09:44] Chicks are cute.
[09:45] Not chickens.
[09:46] Certainly not roosters.
[09:47] I want to murder every rooster I've ever had.
[09:50] Wow.
[09:52] They're mean.
[09:53] They're mean and loud in the morning.
[09:55] Not a good kind of rooster demographic.
[09:57] Yeah, that's true.
[10:00] That was a big demo for us.
[10:02] The other reason is that big sugar definitely, like,
[10:05] weave their way into Easter, right?
[10:08] Like, the only thing that I associate with Easter
[10:11] is getting an Easter basket full of candy.
[10:13] Candy, sure.
[10:14] Yeah, chocolate.
[10:15] Like, that's the only thing, right?
[10:17] No, we're dying eggs.
[10:19] You did that, no?
[10:20] Yeah, sure, dying eggs, but I definitely didn't.
[10:24] My older sisters got a lot more of that than I did.
[10:27] By the time I came around, my mom was like,
[10:29] man.
[10:33] That boy don't want to do this.
[10:35] Right.
[10:36] She was right.
[10:37] Was she wrong?
[10:38] No.
[10:40] So, OK.
[10:42] I think I'm pretty good with this.
[10:47] I think, Joey, do you have an opinion?
[10:50] Because I feel like we've...
[10:53] It's either some pagan key party that involves rabbits
[10:57] or it's big sugar.
[11:01] So, what's the specific question?
[11:04] Where does the Easter Bunny come from?
[11:06] Easter Bunny specifically, OK.
[11:11] I mean, I think the bunny is...
[11:12] So, I would say maybe the bunny and the eggs would be...
[11:17] Yeah, I mean, like, maybe I'm not, like, kind of unrelated.
[11:23] Maybe they came from different places.
[11:27] Yeah, I don't know about key party, but I would say maybe...
[11:34] Maybe...
[11:37] Yeah, I mean, I definitely see...
[11:40] You know, you see rabbits in the spring when they're...
[11:42] I see rabbits in the spring when my cat goes out
[11:46] and brings some back for us.
[11:49] Leaves them on the doorstep.
[11:54] That's...
[11:56] It's always sad.
[12:00] Yeah, I think they're a sign of spring.
[12:03] From age old...
[12:07] This goes back to Harper's pagan ancestors.
[12:11] Mine are Christian all the way back, but...
[12:14] Yeah, better stock than my pagan forefathers.
[12:19] My maternal side, all Christians.
[12:23] They're just the forefathers.
[12:25] Oh, sure.
[12:27] Did you guys know that there's an Easter Bunny tracker?
[12:30] Really? Just like Santa Claus tracker?
[12:32] Absolutely.
[12:33] That's awesome.
[12:34] Wow.
[12:35] Is the Easter Bunny already started?
[12:36] He's in Brasilia.
[12:39] He has delivered 1.1 billion baskets.
[12:42] Already?
[12:43] He's traveling somewhere...
[12:45] His speed is varying between about 1,500 and 4,500 miles an hour.
[12:51] And he's eating 31,607 carats.
[12:55] Now, those kind of speeds...
[12:59] I don't know, that doesn't seem like enough calories quite to me, but...
[13:03] Well, he's got all that chocolate he's probably popping.
[13:06] I know.
[13:07] Where's the chocolate ounce counter?
[13:12] Oh, he's a diabetic for a long time.
[13:18] He needs to be careful in the COVID, really.
[13:21] They say diabetes is high risk.
[13:24] And I'll say...
[13:25] You stay safe Easter Bunny.
[13:27] You don't eat your own supply, right?
[13:29] You don't eat your own supply.
[13:32] You're not going to make money that way.
[13:34] No.
[13:36] Okay.
[13:37] So what I'm seeing so far is that the Easter Bunny was reportedly introduced to America
[13:44] by German immigrants who brought over stories of an egg-laying hare.
[13:51] Really?
[13:52] Decorations of eggs is believed to date back to at least the 13th century.
[14:01] The exact origins are unclear, but rabbits, known to be prolific per creators,
[14:07] are an ancient symbol of fertility and new life.
[14:12] The Easter Bunny first arrives in the 1700s.
[14:17] German immigrants in Pennsylvania transported their tradition of egg-laying hare
[14:22] called Osterhass.
[14:25] Osterhass?
[14:28] My boy.
[14:29] Children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs.
[14:36] Did you know there was a pagan god of fertility called Eostra?
[14:43] No.
[14:44] Uh-uh.
[14:45] And there was there for a festival of Eostra, which I'm guessing is just Easter.
[14:51] They just ripped that name straight off.
[14:54] Really?
[14:56] Just Christians used all of their creativity on writing that book,
[15:01] had nothing left for bread.
[15:04] Oster.
[15:08] Yeah, that looks that sounds a lot like Easter.
[15:10] You're right.
[15:11] E-O-S-T-R-E.
[15:14] The hare was a popular motif in medieval church art.
[15:18] In ancient times, it was widely believed, as by Pliny, the elder Plutarch,
[15:23] Philostratus, an alien, that the hare was a hermaphrodite.
[15:29] The idea that a hare could reproduce without loss of virginity
[15:33] led to an association with the Virgin Mary.
[15:35] Really?
[15:36] With hares something...
[15:37] That is ironic.
[15:39] ...occurring in illuminated manuscripts
[15:42] and northern European paintings of the Virgin and the Christ child.
[15:47] Boy, they did not have a good understanding of animal behavior.
[15:52] That sounds nothing like a key party.
[15:56] I mean, come on, the oyster.
[16:00] Yeah.
[16:01] I mean, this story is so far fetched.
[16:02] This is probably a Finleyville key party.
[16:04] That's what I'm saying.
[16:08] I don't have any specifics here, but time has...
[16:11] Some identify the holiday with other types of animals
[16:14] like foxes or cuckoo birds.
[16:23] And when I click on foxes, I get a Wikipedia site in German.
[16:28] So I'm going to go with, that's probably them.
[16:32] I'm saying that the custom was first mentioned in...
[16:35] George Frank von Frankenau's...
[16:39] De owes pashke...
[16:42] Pash...
[16:43] How do you say that?
[16:44] Nailed it.
[16:45] Pashchalibus.
[16:47] Which is about Easter eggs.
[16:50] In 1682.
[16:54] In 1682.
[16:56] Referring to a German tradition of an Easter hare
[16:58] bringing Easter eggs for the children.
[17:01] So it's Germans.
[17:03] The Germans.
[17:07] Okay.
[17:08] Yeah.
[17:09] The Austra, apparently a venerable bed.
[17:18] Wasn't that your nickname in high school?
[17:24] He's an 8th century scholar,
[17:26] and his work, The Reckoning of Time,
[17:28] said that Easter stems from oyster,
[17:32] although there's no historical evidence
[17:36] to prove his point.
[17:39] I'm seeing that the hare was the sacred beast
[17:43] of Easter, oystra, whatever.
[17:47] A Saxon goddess of spring and of the dawn.
[17:51] Yeah.
[17:52] There's definitely, it seems like there's
[17:54] probably some sort of through line there, right?
[17:56] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
[17:58] So it's both something that the pagans were into
[18:02] and it sort of trickled down through.
[18:05] Probably fell away and then the Germans.
[18:07] The Germans came up with their own thing.
[18:09] Yeah.
[18:10] And then American brandy got a hold of that bad boy.
[18:12] Yeah.
[18:13] Did you, I've got 1572 Germany.
[18:19] Do not worry if the Easter bunny escapes you.
[18:22] Should we miss his eggs, we will cook the nest.
[18:27] Wait, what?
[18:30] Yeah, that's the earliest reference to the Easter bunny.
[18:33] Eel threat.
[18:35] Yeah, that is the kind of Easter bunny that we have.
[18:39] But it is very German.
[18:41] It's very German.
[18:42] It's basically the parents saying like,
[18:44] if the Easter bunny doesn't bring you treats,
[18:46] then I'm going to burn the Easter bunny's house there.
[18:49] We're going to murder that dude.
[18:50] Get this thing done.
[18:54] Yeah.
[18:56] Easter is the second best selling candy holiday in America after Halloween.
[19:01] Okay.
[19:05] According to the National Confectioners Association,
[19:07] over 16 billion jelly beans are made in the U.S. each year,
[19:11] just for Easter.
[19:13] Mmm.
[19:14] Enough to fill a giant egg measuring 89 feet high and 60 feet wide.
[19:20] This for the U.S.?
[19:24] Yes, correct.
[19:28] I also anecdotally know that this is the biggest day
[19:34] for buying baby rabbits, Easter.
[19:40] People give their children bunnies on Easter.
[19:45] And I believe within the first week is the busiest time
[19:50] for rabbit rescues, the first week after Easter.
[19:54] And so if you have bought a bunny for your child
[20:00] and you're going to give it up, do so responsibly.
[20:06] Or just do some research on the Internet.
[20:09] Rabbits are really sweet animals and easy to take care of.
[20:12] So they probably will poop on your floor,
[20:17] but it's really easy to clean up.
[20:19] And they will eat your cords.
[20:21] They will eat your cords.
[20:22] You should rabbit-proof your house.
[20:24] That's cool.
[20:25] Nobody has cords in this day and age.
[20:27] It's fine.
[20:28] Everything's wireless.
[20:29] Everything's wireless.
[20:30] Dude, history.com has killed this thing.
[20:32] So decorating eggs for Easter is a tradition that dates back
[20:35] at least to the 13th century.
[20:37] The explanation is that eggs were formerly forbidden
[20:40] during Lent.
[20:42] Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
[20:45] It doesn't?
[20:46] So people can decorate the mark
[20:47] from the end of the period of penance and fasting.
[20:50] Yeah.
[20:51] The first Easter egg hunt, or Easter egg,
[20:54] White House Easter egg roll occurred in 1878.
[20:58] It's Rutherford B. Hayes.
[21:00] Okay.
[21:01] That needs to go on our list of weird facts about presidents.
[21:05] Yep.
[21:06] The event has no religious significance,
[21:08] although some people have considered egg rolling symbolic.
[21:11] This is a stretch.
[21:12] Symbolic of the stone blocking Jesus's tomb
[21:14] being rolled away.
[21:16] Sure.
[21:17] Quick update on the Easter bunny.
[21:19] Santiago Chile, 1.6 billion baskets delivered.
[21:25] Wow.
[21:26] Okay.
[21:27] So how many baskets has your dumb rabbit delivered, Coalson?
[21:34] I'm assuming zero.
[21:37] My rabbit probably pooped on the rug.
[21:39] That's probably a big accomplishment today.
[21:41] But it took a nap.
[21:42] Unlike the Easter bunny, gave COVID to no one.
[21:47] The Easter bunny is rampantly carrying COVID.
[21:50] Just real trouble.
[21:52] So I do have a question.
[21:53] So is the Easter bunny considered magic like Santa is?
[21:58] Or is it just like real fast?
[22:00] I mean, it's going 2,700 miles an hour.
[22:02] I'll go ahead and call that magic.
[22:03] Right.
[22:04] I know.
[22:05] But like when you're,
[22:06] when you're a kid and like they tell you the story,
[22:08] like is I never think of the Easter bunny as magical necessarily.
[22:12] Right.
[22:13] I never really thought of the Easter bunny as like something
[22:16] that came and delivered the basket.
[22:18] I didn't either.
[22:19] Oh, really?
[22:20] That's why I think the Easter bunny tracker is novel because I don't think
[22:24] of them like Santa Claus at all.
[22:25] Right.
[22:26] Yeah.
[22:27] Is that how it was in your house?
[22:29] Like you woke up in the morning and the Easter bunny had left me at
[22:33] Easter basket.
[22:34] Yeah.
[22:35] So now that you say that maybe.
[22:36] I'm taking your teeth.
[22:37] No.
[22:38] So my memory was I went to see some friends in West Virginia during Easter.
[22:45] My, my family and I visited a family and they had this big thing.
[22:51] The big story was the Easter bunny got sick one year and couldn't hit all
[22:57] the houses and asked his friend,
[23:01] the Easter duck to help them.
[23:05] And so when I, so,
[23:07] and I don't know if this is a version of the story because they went to the
[23:10] store to buy an Easter bunny stuffed animal and they were out and they
[23:15] just had a stuffed animal duck.
[23:17] But when I woke up,
[23:18] there was a stuffed duck in my basket and they told me this long story
[23:22] about how the Easter duck takes half of the world now and the Easter bunny
[23:26] takes the other half because they're buddies.
[23:31] Yeah.
[23:32] Because it was too much work to do the whole world by yourself.
[23:35] And so some houses have the Easter duck come by and that was and in
[23:39] West Virginia, you get the Easter duck in Annapolis.
[23:41] You get the Easter bunny.
[23:43] Yeah.
[23:44] So I still believe that.
[23:47] I still believe that to this day.
[23:49] There's all these different things and you can figure out what it is.
[23:52] You want to tell your kids that the tooth fairy is creepy.
[23:57] In my, so my day, we just had, we just had one.
[24:03] We just had room in our lives and the budget in our lives just for,
[24:07] one generic holiday mascot.
[24:10] They did everything.
[24:11] They left a present.
[24:12] They just, they just took all your teeth and then left one egg.
[24:16] And that was it.
[24:17] What did you call that?
[24:18] They left an egg.
[24:19] Real messed up day.
[24:22] Real messed up day.
[24:25] Oh no, we were.
[24:26] Some random day.
[24:28] You didn't know when it was coming.
[24:30] Yeah.
[24:31] No.
[24:33] I don't know.
[24:34] When you see it, usually it's an unholy territory.
[24:37] So.
[24:38] Yeah.