05/04/2026
What is Ostara?
We have already passed the Spring Equinox, yet over time it has become increasingly conflated with Ostara. Ostara itself is often believed to be a precursor to the Christian Easter.
The name “Ostara” is usually linked to a Germanic Goddess, often described as a hare-associated deity of fertility and Spring. However, there is very little historical evidence for her. Most references trace back to the 8th-century monk and historian the Venerable Bede, who suggested that a figure named Eostre may have been honoured by Anglo-Saxon peoples.
The association of Ostara with the Spring Equinox, however, is a modern development. In the 20th century, Aidan Kelly, while developing the Pagan Wheel of the Year, chose the name “Ostara” for the Equinox, believing it to be an appropriate link based on Bede’s brief reference.
Earlier still, in 1835, Jacob Grimm explored Germanic and Norse traditions, connecting Eostre to wider Germanic belief systems. Even here, however, she is not tied to the Equinox; her feast is placed in April, whereas the Equinox falls in March.
Today, many celebrate Ostara alongside the Spring Equinox, blending seasonal symbolism with reconstructed tradition, while the Christian Easter follows shortly after.
Ostara does appear in later folklore as a figure of Spring and dawn, and it is possible, as Bede suggested, that she was a locally venerated Goddess or myth. Whatever her origins, she has, for many, become synonymous with the turning of the season, though not historically with the Equinox itself.
