The storm that was not supposed to be a storm ended up dumping over a foot of snow on Central Vermont. My son’s town had no power for eight hours on Sunday. Many rural locations did not have power until Monday evening. There were blips all weekend, knocking the electricity out which knocks out computer servers which knocks out the internet which doesn’t just come back on when the power comes back. This is fine for the weekend. It is less fine on Monday in a bank.
Most of the power outages were from downed trees. Saturday’s snow and wind all happened with temperatures right around freezing. It was heavy and sticky snow. On Sunday morning, I woke to the cedars bent nearly double under the weight — with my neighbor’s electrical wires holding up the top branches. This is never a reassuring sight.
Nothing broke except a few more rotten branches on my neighbor’s maple tree. These branches have been dying for so long, they are spongy, as light as balsa and covered in lichen and moss. Lovely, except for the fact that they’re barely hanging on to the living wood — and in this tenuous suspension over my neighbor’s front porch. It’s also not unlikely enough that a good western wind might blow a branch or two off the tree and right through my western windows. But that has not happened yet. What is more likely is that a good third of the tree might decide it’s too tired to rot in place and just topple onto my neighbor’s house. He’s talking about taking down the tree. I think I agree — though it breaks my heart to consider it. That maple might be older than our houses (which were built about the same time in the late 19th century). The trunk is at least three feet in diameter. Maybe four. Each of its three main branches is bigger than any of the other trees on this property. But this old maple is well into senescence now and branches will be raining down on us for the rest of its existence.
That was the extent of the damage on my block. But there were casualties and accidents all over. One semi-truck dumped its tractor into the highway median after hitting a patch of frozen fog on Friday morning. Then two of the emergency responders coming to help the truck slammed into each other. A police SUV was so thoroughly smashed, the engine appeared to be in the back seat. The officer was airlifted to Dartmouth. We don’t know if he’s still alive. If he is, he’s probably not going to be the same person he was before Friday.
The truck needed a crane to get it out of the ditch. I would feel more sympathetic toward the driver if there weren’t so many truckers these days who seem to while away the monotonous miles by scaring the holy crap out of all those in smaller vehicles. They hug the center line, pushing you off the road. They slow down until you attempt to pass them. Then they race you, spewing road grack all over your windshield. They drive too fast. Always. They will barrel along at 70mph even when all the other traffic has slowed to 40mph in hazardous weather. The wake on that much momentum blazing past is enough to rock my car.
Today, the weather is supposed to stay mostly dry and very windy. The barometric pressure was so low with this storm, my fingers and back and knees hurt all weekend. However, being that nature hates a vacuum, the pressure will rise quickly now that the storm that wasn’t a storm has moved out of New England. But the movement of air — the increasing pressure — is bringing moisture and warmth with it. So we’re in for more precipitation for the rest of the work week. The forecast says it will be rain with overnight snow showers. But then that’s what they said about this definitely-not-a-storm.
Either way, it’s not going to be comfortable. And it’s certainly interfering with my plans to build new garden beds. There’s a foot of snow out there again. And if the snow melts, then it’s just going to be a foot of mud.
Instead, I got out the mid-spring decor over the weekend, mostly to reassure myself that it is mid-spring. Somewhere. But it feels hollow. Eggs and rabbits when there aren’t any of either outside my windows. Truthfully though, that’s a good thing. It’s too cold for eggs. And I don’t want rabbits in the garden. But that’s what our culture has assigned to this time of the year. An egg-laying rabbit. Maybe those are better for the peas.
A few years ago, I went digging around for the origin stories on the Easter Bunny and discovered that this beast isn’t even as old as Santa Claus and has no discernible ties to older myths. The Brothers Grimm decided that the Asian lunar rabbit must be a fertility symbol. He is not; he’s literally the shadow shape in the moon’s full face, and in the Chinese Zodiac he symbolizes mercy, beauty and elegance. But to the Victorians everything was a fertility symbol. Rock stuck in the ground in complex alignment with the sun, moon and stars? Fertility symbol. Diamond pattern on a pot rim? Fertility symbol. An ear of corn? Fertility symbol. Rabbits at least are actually rather fecund. But the Easter Bunny is a he, and no male ever produces offspring, never mind the egg-laying mammal issue. And that absurdity drives me batty.
Young me: “But why does he lay eggs?!?”
Answer: “Fertility symbol”.
(Actually, it was usually more like “Because reasons…”.)
You know, Paul Bunyan was created at about the same time as Jacob Grimm mentioned, in passing, that the supposed “goddess of spring” in Germanic-language cultures, Eostre, was associated with a rabbit. But Bunyan grew organically from lived experiences in North America. He was associated with actual people doing actual things in actual places. There are stories about this giant logger in French, English, Spanish, Russian, Creole and probably more languages. He is credited with carving out the Great Lakes at one end of North America and the Grand Canyon at the other. He has so many associated characters that some have their own body of folklore. The body of myth around Bunyan, himself, can fill books.
Compare that to the rabbit, about which there is exactly one possibly Ukrainian folktale. Not much of a going concern, eh?
Same goes for the “goddess of spring”. Eostre may have been a deity of openings and beginnings. She may have been thought of as female, or her name might have acquired feminine traits later on. Her name seems to have been cognate with old Germanic-language words for “dawn”. She is much like Aurora, a phenomenon that has suffered little anthropomorphism. She is not a fertility symbol. Nevertheless, here we are… (Because Victorians…)
Bede claimed that the Saxons named April after this being. He does not name her a goddess, though I suppose he wouldn’t, being rather down on deities other than his own. He also does not give her any traits except the month of April, which would have been the first full month of the year for those who began the year on the vernal equinox and also still is the first month that you can reasonably expect warmer weather, warm enough to see the green world come back to life after the winter’s dearth. New beginnings, to be sure. Probably a fair few rabbits. Bede doesn’t mention them though…
In any case, this isn’t really a story, this rabbit. So why? And how?
Folklorists took much of what the Brothers Grimm reported as Truth. So much so, that they felt the story could bear embellishment. The story grew from one offhand comment about the possibility that the hare was associated with this possible goddess of spring into… The Easter Bunny — with the goddess dumped in the bin along the way. And this happened not as experienced folk-story about actual things, but as a series of mostly old professors with publishing contracts making wilder and wilder claims. Somewhere along the way, people outside academia picked up the idea, though there don’t seem to be any vernacular stories told about this character. There was an Esterhase in the Low Countries, and the Pennsylvania Dutch are credited with introducing this being into North America — where it, no doubt, went feral… like all the other introduced species.
But still… no stories. At least Santa Claus has a myth cycle and origin tale. Several, in fact. This rabbit is just that. A Rabbit. Except for the eggs.
Now, eggs were not invented by Victorian folklorists. Eggs have been a part of April from time immemorial. The abundance of new life — and, let’s be honest, tasty cheap protein with very little chance of death in the acquisition — has been exciting animals for as long as there have been animals. This is not a human thing. This is a food thing. Of course, humans did invent the painted egg, but humans have been painting all kinds of surfaces for as long as we’ve been humans. Probably longer. Painting domesticated poultry eggs was probably an attempt to match the beauty found in wild nests. Maybe. Or maybe drawing on eggs is just irresistibly fun. In any case, the Dutch brought this odd hobby to North America along with the rabbit. And then, the Victorians overlaid both with quaint “traditions” and postcard vignettes.
But then came the mid-20th century. As with EVERYTHING else, the post-War era took the potential for sales in the rabbit and ran with that. Heck, this was a self-replicating product! Good for year after year after year of raking in money for nothing hand over fist. And completely wholesome. A perfect counterpoint to the vernal death cult ceremonies. Fertilizer for dollars!
In summary, why the rabbit? Fertility symbol…
Which I suppose is fine as far as it goes, though I’m well beyond any interest in fertility other than in my soil. Rabbits might help that, except they more than counter whatever they add to the humus by what they take away from the veg patch and orchard. Peter Rabbit was a thief, you know. Even among rabbits, he was a glutton who was put to bed early with a tummy-ache, causing his mother quite a lot of grief along the way.
And maybe that’s what I most object to — making a fetish of fertility, but ignoring the care that actually produces the next generation. Sex does not perpetuate the species. Birthing, feeding, cleaning, tending, teaching, caring, supporting, and ultimately giving your life — all that perpetuates life. Without all that, nothing would live. Fertility is a tool, not the goal. The goal is another healthy being in a web of healthy relationships. Sex rather gets in the way of that goal, to be honest, especially in this culture where we’ve forgotten what sex is actually for.
Rabbits are cute. Much more palatable than the goat gods. Much, much better than the bloody grain gods. But fertility symbols just don’t mean very much. They don’t give much to the world. There aren’t even good stories with The Rabbit.
But why does he lay eggs?!?
These days it’s more like, “Why would anyone lay eggs and then abandon them!”
Because that’s what we do in this culture, I guess…
At least, it means there’s chocolate as counterpoint to all this snow… in which the peas will not be planted… sigh…
©Elizabeth Anker 2024
By My Solitary Hearth 
Our local supermarkets were filled with gaudily wrapped chocolate eggs in shapes ranging from eggs through bunnies to chickens … the shelves groaned with these items immediately after the display of hearts, flowers and chocolates wrapped in silver, red or gold for St. Valentine’s Day. Easter is at the end of this month and a few ‘hot’ crossed buns make it to the bakery shelves along with boxes of marshmallow eggs covered with a very thin layer of chocolate. All the ‘thrills’ of Easter gone long before many parents have had time to recover from purchasing what was required for the start of the school year in January. How can any child believe in the magic of an Easter egg hunt when they have been paraded before their eyes from the middle of February already. As for this grandmother … my skill will have to be used in making up the rhyming clues for my youngest grandchildren to use to find the eggs their mother was clever enough to get whilst the going was good!
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