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"I'm telling you," she said, "I'm doing fine. On my festival days they still feast on eggs and rabbits, on candy and on flesh, to represent rebirth and copulation. They wear flowers in their bonnets and they give each other flowers. They do it in my name. More and more of them every year. In my name, old wolf."

–Easter to Wednesday, Chapter Eleven

Easter is one of the Old Gods, and a supporting character in American Gods. She is currently living in San Francisco where Mr. Wednesday and Shadow visit her to recruit her.

Significance in narrative[]

Chapter Eleven[]

In San Francisco, Wednesday and Shadow meet up with Easter where she is having an extravagant picnic in a park. She leaves behind her picnic free to feed anyone in the park and they head to a coffee house as Wednesday tries to sway her to his side in the upcoming war between the gods. Wednesday reminds Easter that she is only doing well because of bunnies and eggs and Jesus. Wednesday short-changes the waitress and Shadow intervenes, paying her the missing ten dollars. Wednesday proceeds to tell Shadow every bad thing about the woman and Shadow tells him it still doesn't justify stiffing someone.

Chapter Seventeen[]

Easter watches the crowd of gods who have gathered at Lookout Mountain. Macha of the Morrigans approaches her and tells her that she can smell in the air that the battle will start soon. A hawk circles overhead before dropping down to the grass and appearing as Horus. He asks Easter to come with him to the Tree to help Shadow who has been stabbed. Easter tells him she can't abandon the battle but Horus insists that if Shadow is gone forever then it won't matter who wins the battle.

Chapter Eighteen[]

Easter arrives at the World Tree with Horus. They get Shadow down off the tree and Easter encourages Horus to help her warm Shadow up by flying into the sky and removing the clouds from the sun. Easter breathes into Shadow's lungs and gently kisses his face as his side wound bleeds red slightly before stopping. She tells Shadow it's time to get up and he awakens in confusion. She apologizes for bringing him back after he was done but that was what she had to do. Now it is his turn to do what he must do.

Shadow meanders about the meadow at the World Tree as he gets used to being alive again. He reflexively reaches into his pockets looking for a coin but only finds Mr. Wednesday's glass eye. He gets dressed and Easter takes him across the meadow to the thunderbird she had arrived on, telling him she is done and needs to rest. Horus tells Shadow he was the one who brought the thunderbird. Shadow climbs on the thunderbird's back and they take off off into the sky, with Shadow feeling as if he is riding lightning.

Physical appearance[]

Easter is described as curvaceous with platinum blonde hair and crimson-painted lips. She looks to be somewhere between twenty-five and fifty.

Gallery[]

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab

Graphic novel

Notes and trivia[]

Easter is a Germanic goddess and the namesake of the festival of Easter.

  • Ēostre
  • Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab created an oil perfume based on Easter, for their line "American Gods I". It is described as: Jasmine and honeysuckle, sweet milk and female skin.
  • The Annotated Edition of American Gods reveals that in Neil Gaiman's original draft Easter had a much bigger role. She was supposed to be one of the few gods present at the House on the Rock. She was supposed to have a sexual encounter with Shadow after his ordeal on the world-tree (an experience described in Gaiman's note as "strange and beautiful", making love to "fertility itself"). Neil Gaiman also intended Easter to oppose Laura, one embodying life and the other death, one being Shadow's lover and the other his wife.
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