For Christians, Easter is about commemorating the crucifixion of Christ and celebrating his resurrection.
But the festival’s wandering date is determined by astronomical events (Easter Sunday happens the weekend after the first full moon following the spring equinox), and many Easter traditions – such as egg-bearing rabbits – date to pagan times, when people widely welcomed the reawakening of the natural world after winter.
We take a look at the history behind Easter – including a weird and wonderful tradition thought to predate the game of rugby.
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When is Easter Sunday?
This year, Easter Sunday falls on Sunday 20 April 2025.
Why is it called Easter?
As with most major occasions on the Western calendar, including Christmas, both the timing and the traditions that underpin the celebration of Easter have origins that long predate Christianity. Faced with a pagan population that had re-embraced many Celtic customs and adopted some ancient Anglo-Saxon beliefs in the period following the withdrawal of the Romans, the missionary priests attempting to convert the people of the British Isles in the 6th century cleverly co-opted the dates and many of the most enjoyable features of existing festivities, and overlaid them with significant biblical themes.
So, Imbolc became St Brigid’s Day, and Samhain morphed into All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween). Although hard evidence is limited to the writings of Bede (an 8th-century monk and scholar, regarded as the ‘father of English history’) the name Easter is thought to have stemmed from the Germanic goddess Eostre (also called Ostara or Eastre).
Worshipped by the Anglo-Saxons, Eostre was associated with fertility, fecundity, birth and renewal, and she was celebrated across northern Europe around the time of the vernal equinox and through April, when nature was reawakening, spring was in full bloom and animals were producing young. These themes obviously fitted neatly with the concept of the resurrection.
- Imbolc: All you need to know about this ancient spring celebration
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- Summer Solstice: A brief guide to the longest day of the year
Why does the date of Easter move around?
You can thank Constantine the Great for that. According to the scriptures, Jesus was crucified around the time of the Jewish Passover, which occurs during spring in the northern hemisphere. The date of the Passover is determined by the lunar-based Jewish calendar, and falls on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Nisan, which is always a full moon.
Constantine was the first Roman emperor to convert to Christianity, and until his rule the new religion had been outlawed. After he came to power, the First Council of Nicea met in AD 325 to determine the key dates of the Christian calendar, most significantly the timing of the resurrection. Blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus, Constantine was adamant this important date should never coincide with the Passover, and so it was decreed that Easter (as it became known) should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal (Spring) equinox. As a result, the date can potentially fall on any date between 22 March and 25 April.
Easter food and drink inspiration
- The best and most unusual Easter eggs: surprising spring treats
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What is bottle kicking? And what does it have to do with Easter?
Local lore says the bottle kicking tradition began when two ladies, out one Easter Monday, were saved from a bull by a hare, which scarpered across the field, distracting the charging beast. In thanks (to God), the wealthy women donated some land to the local church, and stipulated that the vicar had to provide the poor of Hallaton with a huge hare pie, 12 loaves of bread and two barrels of beer each Easter Monday.
When this duly happened, fights would apparently break out amongst the villagers trying to get their share (scenes recreated in the traditional ‘scramble’ that happens today). One year, however, the neighbouring village of Medbourne attempted to steal the bounty, and the Hallatonians joined forces to fight off the interlopers. And thus a local rivalry and subsequently an annual contest was born. Occasionally, people from a third village – Cranoe – get involved in the fray, often swapping sides and sewing utter chaos. It is classed as a sport, making it one of Britain's weirdest.
What traditions are associated with Easter, and how it is celebrated today?
Historically, hundreds of esoteric Easter traditions would have taken place in locations around Britain. These include the tradition of ‘heaving’ in Lancashire, whereby groups of men would heave (lift) women into the air on Easter Monday, and women would do likewise to men on the Tuesday – it was a similar action to giving people the bumps today, and although it was thought to symbolise the rising of Jesus from the dead, it was likely accompanied by much raucous hilarity.
There was also a tradition in Yorkshire of households baking a loaf of bread each Good Friday, and then leaving it hung up in the kitchen for an entire year (to stop other food going mouldy, apparently), after which time it was used for medicinal purposes.
There are various traditions that involve giving charity to the poor at Easter. In Biddenden, Kent, this was known as the ‘Dole of the Biddenden Maids’, which referred to two sisters, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, born as conjoined twins in the village in 1100. They lived for 34 years and are commemorated in the village sign and Biddenden Cakes, both of which feature two female figures joined together.
One ancient Easter custom still existent is egg rolling in Scotland. Known as ‘pace-egging’, this tradition seemingly originated in Shetland and the Scottish Borders, and it involves children painting and decorating hard-boiled eggs and then rolling them down grassy hills – possibly to symbolise the movement of the sun (in pagan times), or later, when Christianity had taken hold, to represent the rolling away of the stone from the tomb when Jesus was resurrected.
More UK folklore and traditions:
