The hare or the bells?

[franceslievens]

On this evening while the church bells ring to mark the end of Easter vigil (I remember being an altar girl during that mass and attending with all the girls and boys, all of us ringing the bells, a magic moment, even if you're not religious), I am left pondering the other myths that are part of this feast, the ones I tell my children. Tomorrow morning we'll do an Easter egg hunt for the first time. Having lived in an apartment up until now, we never had the opportunity to let LB hunt for hidden eggs. Now we do, and she's really looking forward to the Paashaas* bringing eggs. But where does her Paashaas come from? We haven't actively spoken of the animal, only mentioned hunting for eggs, but somewhere she picked up the notion of Paashaas. I'm not one for discouraging it, but it's different from my myth. I grew up with the story of the bells returning from Rome laden with eggs that they'd drop over the gardens. Later, seeing numerous bunnies and hares on television and in stories, I incorporated the Paashaas in my story as the one responsible for making sure all the eggs were placed nice and tidy in the gardens. Bells throwing eggs tends to become a mess. The Paashaas featuring more prominently in LB's myth is probably caused by secularisation**. The bells returning from Rome is a distinctly Roman-Catholic myth, so it leaves the stories told in LB's state school. Would she have a different myth had she attended a Catholic school? One can only guess, but I am confident most of the myth making happens at school, whereas parents are left to encourage or discourage what pleases and displeases.

Extra notes to ponder:
- On Easter not being the pagan celebration of Spring some neo-pagans believe it is. (Via Stephen Fry's twitter feed).
- Local schools encourage myths surrounding Sinterklaas (television is also on that one) and Easter. Should secular state schools do that? Especially state schools where a large part of the population isn't from Belgian origin and doesn't get presents from Sinterklaas or goes on egg hunts, could take these sensitivities into account. (I have made up my mind on this one, but I'm wondering what your opinions are).

* Note that in Dutch, like in German we speak of a hare and not a bunny bringing the eggs. Speaking from personal experience, I must add that for children hares and bunnies are usually one and the same.
** I have talked about the bells coming from Rome and bringing eggs. LB laconically answers the bells lay the eggs and the Paashaas distributes them. That's another mystery solved: which bird lays chocolate eggs? The bells.

Comments

[syderia]

I think it's part of the original culture of the place and done well, it might be a good occasion for kids to share about the different celebrations of their cultures.

[frances-lievens.livejournal.com]

In most schools there's attention for the celebrations of the other cultures represented in the class. So it does even out a bit.