The Reckoning of Time

English Heritage is peddling the old Ēostre canard. As I wrote last year:

The derivation of the word “Easter” from the name of a pagan goddess is peculiar to English and to German, which got it from Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Those were hardly the first languages in which the Paschal Mystery was ever celebrated. The names of Easter in the Celtic languages have nothing to do with a pagan goddess. It is not even there in Dutch or Frisian, and Frisian is pretty much what English would have been if the Norman Conquest had never happened. Only Saint Bede the Venerable ever mentions Ēostre, and even he says that everything to do with her had died out by his day.

I should add that even Bede mentions Ēostre precisely once. That is the sum total of references to her in the work of anyone at all. Without my wishing to endorse it, there is a school of thought that he made her up. Do read the rest of that short article before this coming week brings us the annual claims that the Resurrection had mythological parallels.

And do read Tim O'Neill on the attempts to link Easter to Ishtar, leapfrogging every country between Egypt and England in a manner reminiscent of British Israelism, the proximity of which to taking over the Church of England was one of Saint John Henry Newman's reasons for leaving it. The world headquarters of that is in Bishop Auckland, which is increasingly expected to elect Reform UK next time. Think on.