1 Eostre the goddess and the free-standing posts of Yeavering Richard North Bede names ‘Eostre’ in his De temporum ratione ‘On the reckoning of time’. This was a work on computus (the method of calculating Easter) which he wrote in 722-5 as an amplification of his De temporibus ‘On the times’, an essay on chronology which he finished in 703. 1 In ch. 15 of his later work, Bede gives the Anglian month- names, referring thereby to the heathen cults of Bernicia a century before him. Two of the names stand out: Hredmonath a dea illorum Hreda, cui in illo sacrificabant, nominabatur. Eosturmonath, qui nunc paschalis mensis interpretatur, quondam a dea illorum quae Eostre uocabatur et cui in illo festa celebrabant, nomen habuit. A cuius nomine nunc paschale tempus cognominant, consueto antiquae obseruationis uocabulo gaudia nouae solemnitatis uocantes. 2 Hred-month is named after their goddess Hreda, to whom they used to sacrifice in that month. Eostur-month, which is now understood as the paschal month, formerly got its name from a goddess of theirs whom they called Eostre and in whose honour they used to celebrate festivals in that month, by whose name they now recognise the paschal season, thus naming the joys of a new ceremony with the customary title of an old observance [or: observation]. Bede also says that Hredmonath corresponds with March and Eosturmonath with April. Nowadays his words on Eostre and Hreda arouse more antiquarian than computistical interest. 3 Why name heathen gods in a treatise on computus? And yet if we look at Bede’s approach to the Roman month-names in ch. 12, we see that he repeats a folk etymology of the name Februaris ‘February’, as a name derived Februo, id est Plutoni, qui lustrationum potens credebatur ‘from Februus, that is Pluto, who was believed to rule over purificatory sacrifice’. 4 Februus was not a Roman god; his name is back-formed from the month. Whether or not Bede could see this, it is possible, on this basis, that he back-formed Eostre and Hreda in like manner from the Anglian month-names in order to replicate the Romans. Hreda and Eostre might thus seem to be Bede’s inventions, were it not that that he sets these names, or the words on which they are based, more deliberately in a season of pre-Christian worship and feast-days. Although no Germanic god-name cognate with Hreda has been found, it 1 Bede: The Reckoning of Time, trans., with introduction, notes and commentary, by Faith Wallis, Translated Texts for Historians 29 (Liverpool, 1999), xv-xvi. My thanks to Mike Bintley and Tony Harris for reading an earlier draft; my thanks to PastPerfect for the use of their site pictures for which, if they care to reply to me, I will offer remuneration. This essay is dedicated to the memory of my father John D. North. 2 De Temporum Ratione Liber, by Bede, ed. C.W. Jones, in Bedae Venerabilis Opera, Pars VI: Opera Didascalica 2, Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 123.B (Turnhout, 1977), 331. 3 Karl Helm, ‘Erfundene Götter?’, in Studien zur deutschen Philologie des Mittelalters Friedrich Panzer von seinen Schülern dargebracht, ed. R. Kienast (Heidelberg, 1950), pp. 1-11. R.I. Page, ‘Anglo-Saxon Paganism: the Evidence of Bede’, in Germania Latina II: Pagans and Christians: the Interplay between Christian Latin and Traditional Germanic Cultures in Early Medieval Europe , ed. T. Hofstra, L.A.J.R. Houwen and A.A. MacDonald, Mediaevalia Groningana 16 (Groningen, 1995), 99- 129, esp. 125-6. David Wilson, Anglo-Saxon Paganism (London, 1992), p. 36. 4 De Temporum Ratione, ed. Jones, 322. The Reckoning of Time, trans. and comm. Wallis, 48. This idea is suggested to me by Éamonn Ó Carragáin (pers. comm.).