Easter customs of old were many and varied but who would have expected so many of them to be nothing short of violent? Some believe Easter is named after the pagan spring festival celebrating Ēostre or Ostara; historically known as the spring equinox, this might explain why the date of Easter is calculated by the cycles of the moon. It falls on the Sunday following the full moon after the first day of spring — nothing Christian about that calculation! One would have thought the dates of Christ’s death and resurrection would have been more definitely commemorated but, no, we stick to celebrating the coming of spring. Compared to this oddity, some of the bizarre customs associated with Easter stop seeming so bizarre. The violence involved in some of them, though, is a little harder to explain…