Moon-Struck

Primitive man, who was the father of myth, tended with his keenness of observation of natural phenomena to link together things which appeared to him to have like attributes. The hare-moon parallel would not have escaped him. The moon is the emblem of inconstancy: it is always changing its place in the sky, and even over two consecutive nights its shape, point and time of appearance in the sky are different.

The hare has a similar attribute. It will appear suddenly in an unexpected place, stand up or leap precipitately out of its form or cover in the undergrowth. It will pause a moment, dart off at speed, only to reappear a few moments later running in an entirely different direction. In the popular imagination, too, the moon (luna) is equated with lunacy; and there is a traditional belief that if you sleep out in the moonlight you are inviting madness, which is presumably the danger which the Psalmist gave assurance against: "The sun shall not strike thee by day nor the moon by night."

The hare's apparent madness at the chief mating season is also well known. It throws all its natural caution to the winds and becomes the opposite of the timid creature that will leap precipitately and hurl itself away from danger. The irrational behaviour of the March hare is therefore another reason for labelling the hare as mad or moon-struck.

– George Ewart and David Thomson
The Leaping Hare
p. 113

Image 1: "Lunar Hare" by Mandy Walden.
Image 2: "As Gold Moon Rolled, the Quest Began" by Mandy Walden.