Origin of the Easter Bunny:  Germany and England.  The Teutonic (German) was the goddess of spring and feasts were held in her honor.  Another story is...   An Anglo-Saxon legend tells how the goddess Eostre (the root of our word Easter) found a wounded bird and changed it into a rabbit (or hare) so that it could survive the Winter. The rabbit/former bird found (undoubtedly to its surprise) that it could still lay eggs, so the rabbit decorated these eggs each Spring and left them as an offering to the goddess who had saved it. 

The bunny was first referenced in 1682 in Germany.