Happy Easter!

No daffodils out yet in Saginaw Forest, but there are flowers, and buds on the trees.

One thing that I didn't know was the etymology of the word "Easter". I had figured that it was dreived from Latin or Greek, but like many things with the English language, one cannot assume this. For example, in Spanish, this date is called "Pascua", "Pâques" in French, derived from "Pascha" in Latin (derived from the Greek "Πάσχα", which is itself derived). In contrast, this date is "Ostern" in German. In other Germanic-languages speaking countries, a derivation of the Latin "Pascha" is used.

So, in looking a little closer (i.e., doing Wikipedia research), this is what one finds for Easter (links in original):

The modern English term Easter developed from Old English word Ēastre or Ēostre or Eoaster, which itself developed prior to 899. The name refers to Eostur-monath, a month of the Germanic calendar attested by Bede as named after the goddess Ēostre of Anglo-Saxon paganism.^[8] Bede notes that Eostur-monath was the equivalent to the month of April, and that feasts held her in honor during Ēostur-monath had died out by the time of his writing, replaced with the Christian custom of Easter.^[9] Using comparative linguistic evidence from continental Germanic sources, the 19th century scholar Jacob Grimm proposed the existence of an equivalent form of Eostre among the pre-Christian beliefs of the continental Germanic peoples, whose name he reconstructed as *Ostara.

The implications of the goddess have resulted in scholarly theories about whether or not Eostre is an invention of Bede, theories connecting Eostre with records of Germanic folk custom (including hares and eggs), and as descendant of the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn through the etymology of her name. Grimm's reconstructed *Ostara has had some influence in modern popular culture.

Furthermore, I learned from Wikipedia that the Greek "Πάσχα" is derived from the Hebrew "Pesach (פֶּסַח)", which is the word for the Jewish celebration of Passover. (Strange, no, how the two overlap? Oh wait, it isn't really, isn't it?)

Therefore, in the English (and German) speaking world, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ on a day named after a pre-Christian goddess of fertility, and Christians in other European-language speaking countries celebrate the same day using a word derived from the Hebrew word for Passover (which celebrates the Jew's escape from Egypt). My point is that neither "Easter" nor "Pascha" have Christian word-roots, and I think that's kind of interesting.