I'm sure that Mouse is right, and the link of Easter to the alleged goddess Eostre is a pile of foetid dingo's kidneys. Frankly, it's just as likely that it was named after Estragon from Waiting for Godot. This is the way that back-creation of religious explanations tends to work. Let me give you an example. And remember this is just a bit of fun - no Celts were decapitated in the production of this blog post.
There is a real tradition that people roll oranges (or at least did when I was young) down Dunstable Downs on Good Friday. A steepish, concave slope called Pascombe Pit, to be precise, that haven for young courting Dunstablians.
People notice that Pasc- as a prefix is a bit like Pasch-. So there you go, there's the rock-solid religious connection (and it is combe-shaped, since you mention it). And the oranges are clearly the stone that was rolled away from the Tomb.
Except, that's clearly just a Christianisation of a pagan ritual. But of course, oranges are - as the name suggest - orange. So clearly they represent the sun. Pascombe Pit orange-rolling was therefore a place where you rolled oranges downhill to represent the sun er... getting stronger in the summer. And Dunstable Downs faces West, and that's the way the sun sets. And so the oranges are rightly going down in a westerly direction. It's all coming together.
Until you remember that the orange hasn't been in these isles that long and was probably unknown in prehistory. So any claims of a long tradition are in a bit of a state.
But then you remember that there used to be a gallows on top of Dunstable Downs. And there are Five Knolls (actually, there's seven barrows, but that's another story) and Elizabeth Pratt was arrested on the Five Knolls and charged with witchcraft and died in Bedford Jail (at the same time that John Bunyan was in there, although there's no evidence she influenced Pilgrim's Progress). So there's a death link, and there's a witchcraft link.
So clearly in the old days they didn't used to roll oranges down Pascombe Pit. No, they rolled the heads down. After all, to Celts the head was the source of the soul, and heads would roll quite nicely. So the Celts would decapitate their victims at the top of the hill - probably criminals, because let's face it those Celts were basically nice, decent types. Probably be keen on a game of cricket if they were around these days. Probably better at cricket than England, at any rate. So they'd execute their criminals, unless there was a real criminal shortage. Then they'd roll the heads down the hill, as a sacrifice to the setting Sun. Goodness knows what they did with the rest of their victims, unless there was a kebab van up at the picnic site in ancient times.
And Vitamin C, like religion, is good for the soul. Which is why in more modern times they used oranges. Although last time I heard, even using oranges was banned for Health 'n' Safety reasons, so goodness knows what Central Beds Council would make of using heads. Unless you could persuade them it was a genuinely neo-pagan ritual, in which case they might give you a grant.
And that's how you get from an innocent Eastertide tradition to a story of decapitation and sun-worship. I'm sure we all feel better for that.
And, if nothing else, I'm getting a worried feeling about why that orange I rolled down Pascombe Pit when I was a child felt so heavy.
Dunstable Downs image from Wikimedia Commons, original uploader Infors. Author Thomas Ormston.
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