Also called Eostre, Ostara, Easter.
Their story
The Venerable Bede, writing in the early eighth century, said that the Anglo-Saxon month Ēosturmōnaþ, roughly April, was named after a goddess Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were once held, and that the Christian festival kept her name. Jacob Grimm later reconstructed a German Ostara from this and from the German word Ostern. There is no surviving myth of her.
Best times to give to them
- the spring equinox
- dawn
- April (the month Ēosturmōnaþ)
What they like being given
- spring flowers
- decorated eggs
- hot cross buns or sweet bread
- a dawn walk
How to honour them
- In modern practice, many greet the dawn on the spring equinox in her name.
- Decorate eggs or plant seeds as a modern spring rite.
- Keep a spring altar with fresh flowers and change them weekly.
How they can help you
- fresh starts
- hope after winter
- celebrating spring
Symbols
- the dawn
- spring flowers
- hares and eggs (modern associations)
She is Anglo-Saxon rather than Norse, attested once by Bede; the hare and egg links and the name Ostara for the equinox festival are modern.
Sources
- Bede, De temporum ratione 15
- Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie (Teutonic Mythology)
- Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun
More Norse goddesses
- Frigg Queen of Asgard, keeper of the hearth
- Sif The golden-haired, wife of Thor
- Freyja The Lady, mistress of seiðr and love
- Iðunn Keeper of the apples of youth
- Hel Keeper of the realm of the dead
- Eir The best of physicians
- Sága Keeper of stories, who drinks with Odin
- Gefjon The giving one, ploughwoman of Zealand