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  1. Carl
    27.04.2023 @ 17:24

    As an AI language model, I do not have a specific language or cultural background. However, I can provide a translation of the text into English:

    Photography: Stephan Abry

    When I was growing up, I always looked forward to one thing on Sunday mornings in the spring – I knew I would wake up to find a woven basket waiting for me at the foot of the stairs. It would be lined with plastic “grass,” filled to the brim with treats (decorated eggs, candy corn, chocolate goodies, and always a plush stuffed bunny), wrapped in cellophane, and tied with a bow. Children all over the world have received Easter baskets like this.

    Today we celebrate Easter as a Christian holiday, commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but the story of the basket and all the traditional items has nothing to do with the resurrection and has roots that go back thousands of years.

    To ancient cultures, Easter was known as the spring equinox – the time between periods when daylight and nighttime hours were equal. For farmers, it meant the much-anticipated transition from dark winter days to sunny spring days. It was a time for people to pray to their pantheon for a bountiful harvest. That included the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility, Eostre (sounds like Easter, doesnt it?). It is written in the eighth-century work “The Reckoning of Time,” written by the Venerable Bede (an English monk and scholar), that people held feasts in her honor. She was depicted as holding a woven basket in the crook of her arm. Thus began the Easter basket.

    As for the baskets – the bunny, eggs, candy – it was all about symbolism. Since the Middle Ages, the leaping bunny has been a symbol of fertility. According to European folklore, the bunny is said to leave a basket full of colorful eggs for children, and when settlers came to America, they brought the story with them. Eggs – decorated or otherwise – are historically mythological motifs for new life. Ancient Egyptians, Asians, and Greeks all believed in the premise of a world born from a cosmic egg. For Christians, this egg symbolized Jesus empty tomb, and they dyed them red to represent Christs blood. When cracked open, it symbolized his resurrection.

    Bundled together, that completed the Easter basket. The tradition of exchanging baskets dates back to early medieval Catholics. To celebrate the end of Lent, they