Sugar..spice..and Everything Nice. These Were The Ingredients Chosen To Create The Perfect Little Girl.

Sugar…..spice…..and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an EXTRA INGREDIENT to the concoction…. CHEMICAL X.

Wow the attention to detail in this movie. They even gave Howl clip-ons and stick-ons since the coward that he is would be to afraid to get them actually pierced

look at me and tell me these earrings aren’t clip-ons

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Yeah no as someone coming from Europe Easter certainly has pagan roots or at the very least traditions imbedded in it that are pagan. There is so much more to our Easter celebrations than just eggs and a rabbit. We light a huge fire on the saturday before Easter and have a folk fest*. We then roll literal fire wheels through our villages. We cut branches of certain trees and bushes and decorate our house with them. That's not Christian and nobody really bothers acting like it is.

*first documented in 800 ac

Easter customs and pagan origins

Easter is widely believed to have pagan origins. It’s repeated so often that the belief comes more from the repetitions than from any actual evidence. It’s possible that a couple of Easter customs have pagan origins … possible.

Myth #1: Easter is based on a festival of the goddess Eostre.

No. Romans were celebrating Easter 600 years before Eostre came along. We’re not even totally certain that Eostre was a goddess: there’s only one reference to her in the historical record, in 8th century northern England, and it could be a folk etymology.

Myth #2: OK, it’s based on the Germanic goddess Ostara, then?

No. Jacob Grimm invented Ostara in the early 1800s. She’s a conjecture, based on Eostre.

Ostara does appear in mediaeval German sources … as the name for the Christian Easter festival, not a pagan goddess.

Myth #3: Ishtar, maybe?

Nope. Easter only has the East-/Ost- name in English and German. Nearly every language calls it something based on Greek/Latin Pascha or Hebrew Pesach.

Myth #4: Well at least the bunny is pagan.

We don’t know that. The bunny first appears in Germany in the late 1600s. And it could be a variety of critters, not just a bunny.

Germany was thoroughly Christian at the time by the way.

Myth #5: But isn’t the bunny sacred to Eostre?

No. Grimm made that up. Only one reference to Eostre, remember? It’s in Bede, and he doesn’t mention bunnies. The bunny first appears in 1600s Germany, Eostre is in 700s northern England.

Myth #6: Well it’s based on the equinox, and that’s pagan at least.

Not particularly. What do you think might have been the earliest attested Roman equinox festival?

Go on, guess.

It was Easter.

Myth #7: It’s bloody well based on a lunar calendar! It must be pagan!

The ancient Hebrew calendar is pagan?

All calendars were lunar a few decades before Easter came along. If they had really wanted something pagan, they’d have used the Roman calendar or the Alexandrian calendar … which were both solar!

Myth #8: Hot cross buns are pagan.

No they bloody aren’t. They were invented in protestant England in the 1700s. They’ve always been mainly commercial anyway, not a church thing.

Myth #9: But I heard they were ancient Greek?

That myth comes from an 1876 book and even the author thinks it’s a weird idea. He just quoted it from someone who was very, very wrong about how ancient Greek works.

Myth #10: But the Romans made bread that was quartered. Gotcha!

I had a pull-apart bread the other night. I didn’t call it a hot cross bun.

Anyway, Roman pull-apart loaves found at Herculaneum are in eighths, not quarters.

Myth #11: I also heard they were invented in St Albans in the 1300s?

First, that’s Christian.

Second, sorry St Albans, it isn’t true. The story comes from a baker in Wardour St, London, ca 1850. He made it up for an advertising flyer, to make his buns sound cooler.

Myth #12: Easter eggs are pagan!

OK, at last we get to one that’s actually possible! Painted eggs are a really widespread custom and there might be a link.

And it might also be that eggs were an Easter treat because people abstained from them during Lent. We don’t know.

Myth #13: Wikipedia says the eggs come from ancient Mesopotamia.

The ultimate source for every single one of Wikipedia’s citations is a book talking about Christians in 17th century Turkey and Persia. Not ancient Babylonians. Wikipedia is wrong.

Myth #14: Aren’t Easter eggs based on phoenix eggs?

It’s true ancient Christians did like the phoenix as a symbol for Jesus’ resurrection.

But phoenixes didn’t lay eggs, in the myth that was current at the time. The new phoenix supposedly grew in the rotting flesh of the old phoenix.

So is there anything pagan about Easter?

Well, maybe the eggs. Maybe.

And if Bede is right about Eostre, then the name ‘Easter’, in English, and only in English, is pagan. (Personally I doubt it: I suspect it comes from a Germanic word for the season of the equinox. Details here.)

And I won’t touch Jesus’ supposed resurrection. I’ll just say: that’s complicated. Dying-and-rising gods aren’t as common as some people say, and Frazer basically designed the idea of them around Jesus, and Mithras doesn’t die, and Osiris dies but doesn’t have a resurrection, and … well, complicated. (More detailed discussion here.)

Further reading with sources and stuff: Part 1 | Part 2 

I just had a lecture about gift economies. I thought the gift exchange was highly ritualised and did come with very strong expectations of reciprocity?

the funniest thing in arguments about economics is when someone tries to convince you cavemen were actually mini-capitalists and trading items was the free market or something so capitalism is human nature

Bc you can define it in different ways?

ykw im actually extremely tired of europeans butting in to conversations about race to say 'actually there is racism against white people in europe :/' cuz no there isnt, yall need to cut it out. there is rampant xenophobia in europe, that is true and its a major problem, but the fact is it would be worse if you werent white. its extremely tone deaf of all of you to make the claim that white people experience racism anywhere when we both know damn well being discriminated against for not being from western europe would be worse if you arent white. as a caribbean native i know this because of the way our diaspora in europe is treated (since theyre both foreigners and nonwhite) and the state of territories like martinique (literally european, still experience discrimination). what you experience isnt fucking racism, and its not comparable to the racism europeans of colour face. just because you experience some discrimination doesnt mean you dont benefit from whiteness and you should all shut the fuck up and realise your hands arent as clean as you seem to think.

this post must be reblogged by everyone