The Secret History of the Easter Bunny

Nay, nay, nay - say it isn't so! There is a deep dark hidden mysterious allegorical truth behind the Easter Bunny - and it has very little to do with Peter Cottontail hopping down the bunny trail.

NO - the truth is much darker and comes from a time of our past cloaked in mystery and intentional obfuscation. And, (sharply inhaled breath) this cover up was done by the church.

Enter one of the most mysterious and misunderstood religious texts ever - the Smithfield Decretals.

Officially known as the Decretals of Gregory IX, this is a collection of canonical law ordered in the 13th century by Pope Gregory IX. Such collections were fairly common at the time, but what’s bizarre about these decretals is the illustrations that went along with them. 

The Smithfield Decretals were created as an illuminated manuscript which was a style that combined illustrations and flowery calligraphy with the lettering. It was a painstaking and expensive process, because each drawing had to be done by hand. Again, nothing unusual about that; plenty of early religious texts did it. 

But when you dig through the copious illustrations in the Smithfield Decretals, you start finding some very weird things. Scattered throughout the pages are violent scenes of geese lynching a wolf, unicorns and yes, giant rabbits decapitating people.

I believe this is all a forgotten segment of history when our Rabbit Overlords, or Cloverlords as some are want to call them, were creating such havoc due to their hatred of humans in all their subtle guise that the church declared an outright ban on Rabbits in hierarchial authority. This was followed swiftly by the defrocking of the Bishop of Cabbage Patch.

In an attempt to reclaim the hearts and minds of the simple pagan populations the Cloverlords began a campaign of enduring mythology, in which rabbits were not only good, but benevolent - coming through our fields and forest to distribute chocolate and other sugary confections.

After all, if children start to see the giant rabbits as nothing but cheerful characters in spring fashion accessorized vests....they will forget the dark times of conquest.

So be wary, I say! Do not be complicit in this myth that hearkens us back to the brink of subjection! Do not believe in the goodness of rabbits. They are after all nasty feindish creatures with sharp pointy teeth....