As such, the Easter Bunny again shows similarities to Santa (or the Christkind) and Christmas by bringing gifts to children on the night before a holiday.

[12][13][14] A common practice in England during the medieval Christian era was for children to go door-to-door begging for eggs on the Saturday before Lent began.

According to the legend, only good children received gifts of colored eggs in the nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter.

[30][31] This has no basis in any authentic, pre-Christian folklore, myth or religion and only appears to date from 1883, first published by K. A. Oberle in a book in German and later quoted by H. Krebs in a notes section in the journal Folk-Lore, also in 1883.

His quote is as follows: Some time ago the question was raised how it came that, according to South German still prevailing folk-lore, the Hare is believed by children to lay the Easter-eggs.

Originally the hare seems to have been a bird which the ancient Teutonic goddess Ostara (the Anglo-Saxon Eàstre or Eostre, as Bede calls her) transformed into a quadruped.

For this reason the Hare, in grateful recollection of its former quality as bird and swift messenger of the Spring-Goddess, is able to lay eggs on her festival at Easter-time.