The Raven Witch and the Easter Bunny

In the days of the Roman Empire and even to the more modern age of Queen Victoria and the gilded age of everything Victorian, March has always been a month of misnomers, misbehavior, and madness.

During the days of old when nonconforming women were witches, and the whispers of their dark deeds were on the lips of everyone who was outdoors and exploring the breaking weather of springtime, even antics of the animals in the countryside would raise eyebrows and spur speculation on everything superstitious.

“Mad as a March hare” was a phrase cautiously spoken when witches were gathering under the belief they could change into a cat, a raven, or a March hare that was already infamous for fighting and confrontation. During the days of witch hunting, when mad speculation was falling like spring rain on the heads of almost everyone, the roaming, fighting, and quickly vanishing March hares became the harbingers of mystery, mayhem, and sometimes enchantment that was for good. 

After the era of witches fell under the spell of disbelief, modern springtime archivists began to explain that hares and rabbits are very different creatures. The hare is always longer, faster, and has larger and longer ears. Hares always live above the ground in nests while rabbits - as we all know from Bugs Bunny - live in underground complexes known as warrens. The Easter Bunny, however, is from a different and much more captivating story.

About the same time the scary witches of fables were stoking fires under cauldrons and casting spells in stone towers above the deep and dark forests of the 1700s, a good side of Mother Nature began to appear in the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring. The fair goddess and maiden of spring was Ostara, and she began to appear when the first of the spring flowers broke through the frost in the woodlands. In her attempt to thwart the evil hearts of witches in their ever-growing numbers, she caught and held captive a witch who was madly flying over the forest trails in the form of a raven. 

After the raven witch flew into the web of one of Ostara’s ever-watchful spiders and became a captive, Ostara kept the creature as a pet in a prison of icicles. With every day’s passing, the weather became warmer, the icicles began to melt, and the witch’s frosty heart began to warm with the beauty of springtime. As Ostara was casting her bounty of new life, color, and hope around the meadows and the forest, the raven witch could not help but contemplate her approaching freedom. As the cage of ice grew smaller, sunbeams began to cast through the dripping icicles and began to show the raven, who was once a witch, all the colors of the rainbow.

One day, when the spiders were watching and the prism of shining colors was no longer strong enough to be a prison, Ostara returned to the forest glen and approached her pet who was the raven witch.

Even though the icicles were feeble and no longer a prison, and the spider silk that once captivated her flight was no longer a trap, the raven witch felt her evil heart thaw and she no longer wanted to escape the beauty that was surrounding her. 

When Ostara spoke to the raven who once was a witch in the language of many colors, the raven at once changed into the most beautiful bird, but because of her past, she was destined to remain on the ground and changed into a hare. 

When Ostara saw the regret in the newly formed creature, from the beautiful bird into the hare, she blessed the change forever and gave a special and everlasting grace to the newly born rabbit and the birth of springtime. With every spring that was to follow, another witch’s heart would melt with the last of the icicles, and the new rabbit that was once a beautiful bird began to lay eggs of every color for every springtime ever after.

When the folk of the woodlands began to discover the colorful eggs that could come only from Ostara and something magical, they beckoned the children to search for the eggs that were only for discovery in the most secret and smallest of places…and wherever there were eggs of every color, a rabbit was a sign that the eggs were waiting.

As the springtime of old began to grow into years and then generations, the witches of old began to vanish along with their thawing hearts, but the bright eggs from the hare, that became the rabbit, which became the bunny, will mark the end of the icicles and the beginning of spring forever.

Meanwhile, back on Marco, in the present age of the wizardry of modern technology, a particular Marco beach boy was jogging along the track on the lake at Mackle Park. During December, a brown rabbit with a cottontail was crossing the track just before dawn. In January, there were three, and then five rabbits, scampering around the light posts on the lake. February found eight on the single circuit around the track to the soccer field, but at the beginning of March, there was an eleven count of the light brown rabbits. The rabbits were active and moving in the predawn light, but now as the beginning of springtime approaches, the furry critters have been appearing at mid-day and waiting in driveways.

The icicles of winter might not have been reaching into Southwest Florida, and there might not have been any raven witches caught in the webs of ever-watchful spiders, but sometimes fantasy stories for children grow like the number of cottontail rabbits on Marco Island.

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder—the Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.