There are two species of hare in the UK: the native mountain hare and the brown hare. The latter, a naturalised species, is thought to have been introduced in Roman times or earlier. The brown hare is larger than a rabbit, with distinctive black-tipped ears and powerful rear legs. It is well-known for its speed and ability to turn fast to evade predators.
The mountain hare, which is smaller than the brown but larger than a rabbit, can be found in the heathlands of northern England and Scotland (esp. the Peak District and Highlands) and, like the brown hare, don’t use burrows; instead, they shelter in shallows in the ground called ‘forms’. They have a grey-brown coat in summer, which turns white in winter. Their ear tips stay black all year round.
As with many animals in folklore, there are often conflicting beliefs and customs concerning luck and bad omens. In the case of the hare, it has been continually persecuted through the ages; added to that, its habitat, usually a mosaic of fields and woodland, has also been heavily impacted upon as farming practices have changed, such as the early cutting for silage to support more intensified methods of farming. According to the Wildlife Trust, their numbers are in decline.
One of the most commonly referenced superstitions (maybe because it’s the most fascinating and incredulous) concerns witches and shapeshifting. This may also be why hares were often referred to in the feminine form, as many thought them all to be female. We know people thought witches could shapeshift into many forms; listen to the folksong The Twa Magicians. Another common form they were said to take was that of a cat, a belief that led to some refusing to talk near a cat in case a witch learned of their secrets.
In Ireland, the most famous tale is probably that of Nancy Molony. A farmer shot a hare and followed its blood trail back to a cottage where he found Nancy Molony, said to be the greatest witch of all, holding her wounded side covered in blood. In a typical bloodthirsty fashion, this was cause for him to rejoice.
Jane Wilde, an Irish poet who wrote under the name of Speranza, also told of another: A tailor one time returning home very late at night from a wake, or better, very early in the morning, saw a hare sitting on the path before him, and not inclined to run away. As he approached, with his stick raised to strike her, he distinctly heard a voice saying, “Don’t kill it,” However, he hit the hare three times, and each time he heard the voice say, “Don’t kill it.” But the last blow knocked the poor hare quite dead, and immediately, a great big weasel sat up and began to spit at him. This greatly frightened the tailor, who grabbed the hare and ran off as fast as he could. Seeing him look so pale and frightened, his wife asked the cause, on which he told her the whole story, and they both knew he had done wrong and offended some powerful witch who would be avenged. However, they dug a grave for the hare and buried it, for they were afraid to eat it and thought that the danger might be over. But the next day, the man became suddenly speechless and died off before the seventh day was over, without a word evermore passing his lips, and then all the neighbours knew that the witch-woman had taken her revenge.
Some believed it was bad luck even to utter the hare’s name, giving rise to alternative names. A Middle English poem featuring many words for the hare (many of which are insults) was translated by Seamus Heaney. It included the names: scotart, big-fellow, bouchart, beat-the-pad, white-face, funk-the-ditch, the skidaddler, the nibbler, the slabber, the starer, the wood-cat, the purblind, the furze cat, the skulker, the bleary-eyed, the wall-eyed, the glance-aside and hedge-springer.
A thirteenth-century Shropshire poem offers 77 similar and sometimes identical names to the one Heaney translated. They include ‘The one who doesn’t go straight home, the traitor, the friendless one, the cat of the wood, the dew-beater, the dew-hopper…and the animal that no one dares name’.
Not all customs followed suit…George Ewart Evans (author of The Pattern Under the Plough) told of a woman from Claydon in Suffolk who used to say “hares” before going to bed on the last day of the month and “Rabbits” when she got up in the morning. He adds, “The connection of the hare with the moon and therefore with the monthly cycle needs no further comment”.
One unusual omen I read of was from the North East of England, where if a fisherman met one on the way to work, he promptly returned home.
It’s worth mentioning that the hare wasn’t singled out as an evil omen. Animals of all types have signified omens. Owls were often regarded as birds of death, and the mournful cries of flocks of birds (possibly curlews, plovers or whimbrels) were called the Seven Whistlers. In Shropshire and Worcestershire, there were said to be six whistles in search of a seventh, and when that seventh was found, the world would end. The Seven Whistlers were also said to be the grief-stricken souls of un-baptised babies – nothing like putting the fear of God into them to keep them coming back to church.
As you can hear in the playlist below, the Hare features widely in folk song. On Hares on the Mountain, there is a verse:
If maidens could run like hares on the commons
If maidens could run like hares on the commons
How many young men would take horse and ride hunting?
And in terms of shapeshifting, you don’t get more than The Twa Magicians, in which a lusty smith pursues a woman. To evade him, she changes from a dove to a mare to a hare to a fly to a sheep…on each transformation, he also transforms to keep in pursuit.
Enjoy the songs.
There is also a similar playlist here on Mixcloud.
