Ostara | Goddess of Dawn and the Spring Equinox

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This is the second in a series of deity tracker videos exploring the origins, meanings, associations, mythologies and folklore of various gods, goddesses, divinities and deities of human culture.

Ostara or Eostre was the goddess of dawn and the spring equinox to the Anglo-saxon, Old English and Germanic speaking peoples of north west Europe.

The Christian celebration of Easter has been named after this goddess.

Attested by the venerable bede as being worshipped by the heathens before Christianity, Eostre / Ostara was a fertility and love goddess whichg many parallels in Indo-European mythology.

Her name, meaning 'east' is shared with the greek Eos and the Roman Aurora and she has a similar story to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar as well as the Irish / Celtic Bigid / Bridgit and even the Norse Freya / Freja.