BUN, a small cake, usually sweet and round. In Scotland the word is used for a very rich spiced type of cake and in the north of Ireland for a round loaf of ordinary bread. The derivation of the word has been much disputed.
Like the Greeks, the Romans ate bread marked with a cross (possibly in allusion to the four quarters of the moon) at public sacrifices, such bread being usually purchased at the doors of the temple and taken in with them—a custom alluded to by St. Paul in I. Cor. x. 28. The cross-bread was eaten by the pagan Saxons in honour of Eoster, their goddess of light. The Mexicans and Peruvians are shown to have had a similar custom. The custom, in fact, was practically universal, and the early Church adroitly adopted the pagan practice, grafting it on to the Eucharist and so giving us the "hot-cross bun."