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Flickr).
Ēostre was the name of a pagan
Anglo-Saxon goddess of the dawn, mentioned by the English monastic scholar, the
Venerable Bede in his 8th-century work, De temporum ratione (The Reckoning of Time).
The Old High German name for a goddess of the dawn was Ôstara. In Lithuanian mythology, the feminine deity of the morning star (Venus) was Aušrinė. All were derived from Austrō(n), the Proto-Indo-European name for goddess of 'dawn.'
In Anglo-Saxon England, the springtime festival in honor of Ēostre gave its name to a month (Northumbrian: Ēosturmōnaþ, West Saxon: Eastermonað), the rough equivalent of April, then to the Christian feast of Easter that eventually displaced it.
That being said, the modern Lithuanian name for Easter, “Velykos” is NOT related to the name “Aušrinė,” but derived from the word “vėlės,” for “souls” (as in, the saving of human souls from eternal damnation).