The symbolic Easter Bunny seems to be originating in Alsace and western Germany where it was found in writings in the 17th century for the first time. The first edible bunnies were made of sugar and pastry in the early 1800s.

German settlers brought the Easter bunny in America in the 1700s. Their children were told about the “Oschter Haws” (a phonetic transcription of the German Osterhase). “Hase” means “hare,” not rabbit, and in western European folklore the “Easter Bunny” indeed is a hare, not a rabbit. The tradition wants that only good children would receive gifts of decorated eggs in the nests that they would build out of caps and bonnets and place in secluded areas of their homes. The nest has turned into the manufactured Easter basket as the tradition spread, and the placing of the nest in a secluded area has become the tradition of hiding baskets. Thus the Easter egg hunt was born.

The idea of an egg-laying bunny seems to be the result of a European folklore confusion between hares raising their young at ground level and the finding of bird’s (plovers) nests nearby. So in the Spring, eggs would be found in what looked like hare hollow.