Customs, Traditions & Folklore of Norse, Pict & Gael
The horse and plough festival of Eostre on South Ronaldsay, Orkney, was a relic of the ancient fertility rites of the Norse, whose goddesses and gods of birth and harvest had as their symbols the mare, the stallion and the phallic plough. A ploughing, therefore, could represent the erect phallus of Frodhi the fruitful penetrating the dark rich earth womb of his consort Freyja / Frigg, followed by the seeding. The horse holds equal status with the boar and the sow as cult animal of the Vanas, or fertility powers. The purpose of the festival in which children dressed as horses and ploughmen was to ensure the fruitfulness of the land. The part of the horse, that could be taken by either a boy or a girl, necessitated the wearing of a yoke, elaborate headgear, and an outfit resplendent with bright buttons, mirrors, ribbons and bells. The turnout was completed with horse tails as well as horse hair fetlocks for the ankles. The ploughmen had their ploughs, originally no more than a stick with a cow's foot on the end, later actual child size ploughs forged by the blacksmith. The children then enacted a ploughing ritual with the aim of producing rich crops.
In Viking Age Denmark ships (larger versions of the plough) were dragged through the fields to hallow them.
On Old Candlemas the Night of the Gyro was observed on Papa Westray. This was a rite of banishing to deal with the threat of the trow (or troll) maids rising from the beach with their heavy tangles in their hands to terrorise the children. Like the guy of the bonfire night, an effigy of the gyro or gygr (she trow) was thrown into the flames in a form of exorcism. These trow maids were said to be of the forces of winter, death and decay giving way before those powers of light and spring increase ruled by the lusty goddess Freyja.
OSTARAMOON or Eostre
is the springtime festival in honour of the hare goddess, heavy with her young at the first full moon after the spring sunstead, and giving birth the first Sunday after that. The time of new growth, the greening of the land after winter.
It was the custom in lowland Scotland for the festival to be celebrated with priapic rites, for as Lewis Spence states in his writings, quoting the Lanercost Chronicle, a priest of Fife in 1282 encouraged local maidens to dance and sing around a phallic idol of the Frodhi / Uerpanto type.
In Germany if children were good they were told that the hare (the Easter Bunny) would lay lucky eggs for them. in other parts of Europe Easter eggs were painted red, the colour of rebirth, while in Scotland whin blossoms were used to produce a solar yellow, and rolled down hills in honour of the sun.
The hare as totem of the moon goddess appeared on the banners of Queen Boudicca, who took the royal hare into battle with her against the Romans. The country folk of Kerry will not eat the tabooed hare meat. As the symbol of spring fertility, the hare is so fecund it can conceive even when heavy with young. The Angles called it shagger. It was also one of the forms the sacred king of the old year took in his ritual hunting down and sacrifice at the hands of the priestesses for renewed fertility of the land.