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Happy Eastre

Just about every festival celebrated by modern society occurs on a fixed date, they can be relied upon as a source of income, gifts or perhaps a good meal. We look forward to birthdays, Christmas and anniversaries months in advance, safe in the knowledge that they always occur on the same date. However there is one festival which is something of an anomaly, it seems to hover around the period of late March to early April, refusing to commit itself to a specific date.

As you will have guessed by now I am speaking of Easter, guaranteed source of all things chocolate, and festival of gross self-indulgence which occurs at the end of 46 days of sufferance. Anybody who takes the trouble to give something up for Lent will doubtless start on Ash Wednesday and attempt to last until Easter Sunday, which is a total of 46 days, thereby beating Jesus' personal career best of 40 days. This year I have decided to give up watching reality television shows for Lent. It has been difficult so far, mainly due to the fact that most channels are saturated with them, however I have not thrown the towel into the Big Brother pool as yet.

The Lenten season is traditionally preceded by a festival called Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day as it is more commonly referred to. At one time it was customary to give up eating meat for Lent, so Shrove Tuesday was often referred to as Carnival, which means farewell to meat in Latin. Today Lent is predominantly treated as a chance to resurrect failed new year's resolutions, as the notion of giving something up for 40 days isn't quite as daunting as infinity without tobacco.

Easter originally came from the pagan festival of Eastre, which was a Saxon celebration of the goddess of springtime. This coincidentally occurred at the same time of year as the Christian celebration of the Resurrection, and over a period of time they became one and the same. Prior to AD 325 Easter was celebrated on varying days of the week, however in that year Emperor Constantine issued the Easter Rule, which states that Easter shall forever be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon that follows the Vernal Equinox . The Vernal Equinox is the half way point between the longest and shortest days of the year, and generally passes us by unnoticed on March 21 st .

The Anglo-Saxons worshipped their goddess, Eastre, through her earthly symbol, the rabbit. This is widely regarded as the source of the Easter Bunny, as opposed to a jovial creature who delivers foil-wrapped confectionery to children, free of charge. Not quite as romantic I admit, but certainly more palatable to a grown adult. The egg is a symbol of life in most cultures, and Easter is a celebration of life, so it is fitting that people exchange them as gifts, although they weren't always made of chocolate. Pagan peasants used to decorate eggs by boiling them with the petals of brightly coloured flowers, and in some ways this tradition has evolved over time, as I can recall spending many hours painting cartoon faces on hard boiled eggs at primary school.

For some of us Easter is about the resurrection of Christ from the dead, for others it is purely a chance to feast on chocolate without the usual burden of guilt. Either way, given the hectic pace of modern living, we can no longer place ourselves at the mercy of the Moon when arranging Easter. Something must be done; we need someone to pass an amendment to the Easter Rule, assigning it to a specific date. In his day Emperor Constantine, instigator of the Easter rule, was considered by many as a wily statesman who exploited his Christianity for political purposes. If only our leader Tony Blair possessed these qualities?

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