David Welton took all of the photos.
While it felt like winter on Saturday, April 8, a popular Easter egg hunt in Clinton attracted a good crowd of folks eager to find pastel-colored eggs filled with candies. Whidbey Telecom sponsored the event at Dan Porter Park.
According to an English Heritage blog, the tradition of the egg hunts date back to 16th Century Germany. Martin Luther, an early Protestant, invited men to hide eggs and asked women and children to find them. Linked to Jesus’ death and resurrection, the egg represents the resurrection and the empty shell Christ’s tomb. When a woman came to visit the site she found the cave’s stone rolled away and the tomb empty.
In regards to the Easter Bunny, the site notes: “In the German Lutheran tradition the Easter egg hunt is linked to the Easter Bunny – or the Easter Hare as he was originally known. The first written reference to the Easter Hare was in 1682 in Georg Franck von Franckenau’s essay, De ovis paschalibus (‘About Easter eggs’). However links between hares and rabbits and Easter go back earlier in central Europe. Hares were associated with fertility and with the Virgin Mary, and sometimes appear in paintings of the Virgin and Christ Child, and also in illuminated manuscripts. Custom had it that the hare would bring a basket of brightly painted eggs for all the children who had been good, and these would be hidden around the house and garden for the children to find.”
This Easter felt like the first in a while where folks could gather and have fun without worry about COVID.
