CHAPTER XXI 

 EASTERTIDE, SHAMROCKS AND SPERMACETI 



MOST people think of Easter as a Christian festival, 

 but it is really in name and origin a pagan one. 

 The word " Easter " is the modern form of " Eastra," the 

 name of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring (in primitive 

 Germanic, " Austro "). The Germans, like ourselves, keep 

 its true pagan name, " Ostern." The Latin nations use 

 for Easter the word Pascha (French, PAque), the Greek 

 form of the Jewish name for the feast of the Passover, 

 with which it is historically associated by the Christian 

 Church. Terrible quarrels have occurred in early ages 

 over fixing Easter Day and its exact relation to the 

 Jewish calendar. This is the explanation of its being 

 " a movable feast " and of the consequent inconvenience 

 to Parliament, schoolboys, and Bank-holiday-makers at 

 the present day. It must be admitted that when Easter 

 comes as early as it sometimes does those who have but 

 ■ the short spring holiday of the Easter week-end are 

 hardly used. Instead of enjoying the sunny spring 

 weather of Austro, and the flowers and the bursting buds 

 which an Easter at the end of April often gives, they 

 have to put up with the dreary chill of arid March, and 

 this, absurdly enough, is all on account of a mistaken 

 attempt at accuracy made by the Church some sixteen 

 hundred or more years ago in trying to bring the 

 Christian festival into line with the Jewish Passover. If 



