Happy Easter to you all!
I thought I'd talk about that very important subject: what do bunnies have to do with Easter?
Actually, bunnies have everything to do with Easter. Bunnies are very fertile little creatures, as we all know, and Easter began life as a Germanic fertility celebration.
The first mention of pagan Easter was in a book written in 703AD by the famous English mediaeval monk The Venerable Bede. Bede mentions that in Eostre's Month the people celebrated with feasts in honour of the Goddess Eostre.
Eostre was a Germanic goddess, (definitely not classical), possibly also known as Ostara. It's slightly odd that she doesn't get a mention anywhere else other than Bede, but it's not a huge problem. Early Germans weren't exactly literate, early Christians weren't exactly fond of pagans (and in any case were very busy expropriating their festivals), and the fact that Easter got taken over complete with original symbolism demonstrates the existence of the original festival.
It didn't take long for Eostre / Ostara to morph into Easter. Eggs are also a fertility symbol (obviously). Somewhere along the line the two got mixed together and the Easter Bunny ended up dealing out eggs.
And so here we are, painting eggs and eating chocolate bunnies. There are worse fates for a goddess.
Death Ex Machina: Publisher's Weekly starred review!
I woke this morning to find congratulations emails in my inbox, because this lovely review has just appeared in Publishers Weekly. Here it is:
In Australian author Corby’s superior fifth whodunit set in ancient Greece (after 2014’s The Marathon Conspiracy), the city of Athens is preparing to host the Great Dionysia, “the largest and most important arts festival in the world.”
But the success of the event is in doubt after a series of accidents on the set of Sophocles’s play Sisyphus. The cast members believe this is the work of a ghost. Pericles, the city’s most powerful man, asks Nicolaos, his inquiry agent, to get rid of the ghost.
Unfortunately, not long after Nico arranges for an exorcism ritual, one of the actors is murdered, suspended from the machine designed to hold the character of Thanatos, the god of death, in midair during the performance.
Under pressure to find the killer quickly as the festival start date looms, Nico resorts to a clever and amusing ploy to buy more time.
Corby again manages to effortlessly integrate laugh-out-loud humor into a fairly clued puzzle.
In Australian author Corby’s superior fifth whodunit set in ancient Greece (after 2014’s The Marathon Conspiracy), the city of Athens is preparing to host the Great Dionysia, “the largest and most important arts festival in the world.”
But the success of the event is in doubt after a series of accidents on the set of Sophocles’s play Sisyphus. The cast members believe this is the work of a ghost. Pericles, the city’s most powerful man, asks Nicolaos, his inquiry agent, to get rid of the ghost.
Unfortunately, not long after Nico arranges for an exorcism ritual, one of the actors is murdered, suspended from the machine designed to hold the character of Thanatos, the god of death, in midair during the performance.
Under pressure to find the killer quickly as the festival start date looms, Nico resorts to a clever and amusing ploy to buy more time.
Corby again manages to effortlessly integrate laugh-out-loud humor into a fairly clued puzzle.
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