Ēostre

Ēostre ([ˈeːostre]) is an Anglo-Saxon goddess mentioned by Bede in his 8th century work The Reckoning of Time. He wrote that pagan Anglo-Saxons had held feasts in her honour during the month named after her: Ēosturmōnaþ (April), and that this became the English name for the Paschal season: Easter.

The Old High German name for April was the cognate Ôstarmânoth, which has led scholars to suggest there was a similar Continental Germanic goddess, *Ôstara. Their theory is supported by votive inscriptions dedicated to goddesses called the matronae Austriahenae, found in 1958 in Rhein-Erft-Kreis, Germany. The theonym may also be a part of some placenames and personal names.

By way of linguistic reconstruction, the matter of a goddess called *Austrō(n) in the Proto-Germanic language has been examined in detail since the foundation of Germanic philology in the 19th century by scholar Jacob Grimm and others. As the Germanic languages descend from Proto-Indo-European (PIE), historical linguists have traced the name to a Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn *H₂ewsṓs, from which may descend the Germanic goddess at the origin of the Old English Ēostre and the Old High German *Ôstara.

It has been debated whether the goddess was an invention of Bede, particularly before the discovery of the matronae Austriahenae and further developments in Indo-European studies. Due to these later developments, modern scholars generally accept that she was a genuine pagan goddess. Ēostre and Ostara are sometimes referenced in modern popular culture and are venerated in some forms of Germanic neopaganism.