Maximum Significance

Due to its historical multivalence, the archive of associations which it has generated, the hare is rip to be . . . squeezed for maximum, even ultimately uncertain or inchoate significance. Amongst the kinds of things which it has been made or co-opted to signify is, precisely, this poetically open-ended or resonant quality. That said, they tend to cluster around a number of areas more or less troped upon its natural history: sex, death, speed and vitality, super-sensitivity, elusiveness and cunning; untamed or unfathomable "wildness," with only their sinister portentousness bucking the trend.

– Simon Carnell
Hare
pp 45-46

Image: Catherine Hyde.

Bel Homme III

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Much in Common

The hare and the fox have much in common. They are both active by night, both symbols of the irrational, the intuitive, of cunning and the fickleness of the moon.

– George Ewart Evans and David Thomson
The Leaping Hare
p. 218

Image: Detail of "The Forest" tapestry by William Morris.

The White Hare

The White Hare
By Seth Lakeman

I heard her in the valley,
I heard her in the dead of night.
The warning of a white hare
Her eyes burning bright.

Careful you don’t catch her
Or give her right of way.
For she will look upon you,
Steal your soul away

For the white hare is calling,
Dancing in the night.
She’ll be out ’til the morning,
With eyes burning bright.
The white hare is calling you.

Out upon the heather
A shadow came onto me.
Her hair was hanging over,
Her face I could not see.

She ran behind the rocks,
I heard the hounds cry,
The image of a woman
With her head held up high.

For the white hare is calling,
Dancing in the night.
She’ll be out ’til the morning
With eyes burning bright.
The white hare is calling you.

If you go hunting,
Calling out your prey,
If you see a fair maid,
With her hair ash and grey.

Careful you don’t catch her,
Give her right of way,
For she will look upon you,
Steal your soul away.

Recommended Off-site Link:
Seth Lakeland's Official Website

Tan Lines XXXI

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Running Hare X

Image: Scott West.