Richard Sermon, Easter: A Pagan Goddess, a Christian Holiday, and their Contested History. London: Uppsala Books, 2024, 184 pp., 10 black and white figures

Richard Sermon wades through the onomastic, archeological, religious, and folkloric roots of the English (and German) name, Easter/Ostern, used in place of the Greek and Latin borrowings of the Aramaic spelling (paskha) of the Hebrew word pesach ‘passover,’ In the introduction, Sermon connects the putative goddess associated with the name to persistent interests in modernity, from German nationalism to neopaganism and enduring popular questions today, as well as to debates about medieval source materials.