Victorian holiday cards, whether Christmas or Easter, can be counted on to be bizarre or sentimental--and for the most part, secular. While frogs (for some inexplicable reason) in Christmas cards are experiencing mishaps and doing foolish things, in Easter cards, not surprisingly, rabbits and chicks are featured, for better or worse.
A very large, well-dressed rabbit proposes to an oddly proportioned girl. Did she accept?
A hen with color-coordinated dress and umbrella chases away a bunny. Was he trying to take away her eggs?
Bang! In this German card, a chick blasts away at a rabbit.
There's not much joy for this female chick in a guardhouse with broken eggs spilled on the ground. The chick soldier is wearing a Pickelhaube, a German style helmet from that period. Hmm.
Rabbits smoking flowers in egg bowls. *cough*
Easter bunnies drop their egg basket when bees and mud-slinging frogs attack them.
Cherubic babies go at Easter eggs with hammers. Take that!
Storks don't bring babies, bunnies do, in eggshells. No message on the sign. We, too, are left speechless.
Very bizarre: Injured rabbits pushing a severely wounded one come across a small one slumped on a road marker. Were they shot by gun-toting chicks?
'Want to see more vintage cards? Check out this BBC article, "The Odd World of Victorian Easter Cards":"The Odd World of Victorian Easter Cards"
Happy Easter! 'Hope it's not too weird.