The Tamed Hare

The following is excerpted from The Hare by Jill Mason.

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Books written a hundred years ago suggest that leverets were quite easy to rear artificially, but modern opinion differ with those findings.

The poet William Cowper kept three Brown hares as pets: Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Despite their names they were in fact all males. Bess was always tame but died soon after he was fully grown. Tiney never did become tame and would strike our with his forefeet, grunt and bite if anyone tried to handle him. He lived until he was eight years and five months old and Cowper described him as being “the surliest of his kind.”

Puss, however, grew to be tame and was delightful to have as a pet. Apparently he was happy to be carried around and could be let out into the garden. In fact, he would ask to be taken out there by drumming on Cowper’s knee or pulling at the skirts of his coat with his teeth. Puss lived until he was eleven years and eleven months old.

An account of his hares, written by Cowper himself, appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine on May 28, 1784, and filled seven pages. He observed that they would investigate everything, using particularly their sense of smell. He recounts that they detested some people but were immediately attracted to a miller who visited. Presumably they were drawn to him by the pleasant smell of wheat and flour on his clothes.

Another person who kept a doe for more than two years recorded that he found her to be most active after dark and very sensitive to changes in atmospheric pressure (changeable weather).

W.B. Yeats in his poem Two Songs of a Fool wrote, “A speckled cat and a tame hare eat at my hearthstone and sleep there.” There are other accounts of young hares being fostered on to cats feeding kittens, and of older hares living quite happily alongside pet dogs and even being taught to do tricks. J.J. Manley, author of Notes on Game and Game Shooting (1881), commented that “many of us have seen performing hares in the London streets,” although he himself had not been able to tame one.

It is generally agreed today that young hares are difficult to rear, even when they are artificially fed on milk substitute such as cat’s milk replacement. If they do survive, they usually prove to be very highly strung. A single hare is much more likely to be tamed than when two or three are reared together. [Case in point:] Carine Neyt, who lives near Ghent in Belgium, successfully reared a male hare that she rescued as a baby from the mouth of a neighbour’s dog. Poliet, named after a hare in a Belgium children’s book, spent the first year of his life in Carine’s home. He is now eight years old and unusually tame.


See also the previous posts:
Epitaph on a Hare
Hare ’o the Tabor
The Year of the Hare

Celebrating Eostre

I am movement towards becoming
expanding
enhancing
the impulse deep within all being
to develop
evolve
press onward
to fulfill
all that is possible

The Germanic Goddess of fertility and spring, Eostre (pronounced yo'ster), or Easter, was celebrated with the ritual lighting of dawn fires as a protection for the crops. She symbolizes springtime, new growth, and rebirth.

Once, when the Goddess was late in coming, a little girl found a bird close to death from the cold and turned to Eostre for help. A rainbow bridge appeared and Eostre came, clothed in her red robe of warm, vibrant sunlight which melted the snows. Spring arrived. Because the little bird was wounded beyond repair, Eostre changed it into a snow hare who then brought rainbow eggs. As a sign of spring, Eostre instructed the little girl to watch for the snow hare to come to the woods.

Eostre comes into your life with her springtime message of personal growth. It is time to open to things in your life that facilitate growth, development, evolution. Is there a class or workshop you've been wondering if you should take? Do it now! Is there something new that you want to include in your life? Let it in now! Have you just gone through a period of stagnation and lethargy where nothing seemed to be happening? Let it go! Now is the time of growth. The Goddess says that wholeness is nurtured when you stretch. The stretching promotes your growth.

- Source

See also the previous posts:
The Goddess Ostara
Magical Creatures
Sacred

Morning Light XX

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Tattoo You

Tattoos definitely suit some guys (as the images accompanying this post attest) but the Rev. Peter Mullen’s recent idea of certain types of tattoos for homosexuals is just plain wacky.

Thankfully, the Gay and Lesbian Review puts the Reverend’s proposal into perspective.

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Understandable outrage erupted when the chaplain to the London Stock Exchange, Rev Peter Mullen, declared on his blog: “It’s time that religious believers began to recommend . . . discouragements of homosexual practices after the style of warnings on cigarettes packets. Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS.”

Petting aside the medieval absurdity of the Reverend’s suggestion, not to mention the matter of his sanity, the proposal seemed oddly illogical even on its own terms. There’s the obvious fact that fellatio is often performed by a woman upon her male sex partner, who might even be her husband, so unless the reverend is on a war against fellatio itself (which is quite possible), he may want to rethink the whole “fellatio kills” idea.

Furthermore, there seems to be a design flaw in the proposed warning labels, both of which appear next to an orifice that could be penetrated by a male phallus whose owner is the supposed target of these messages. As it happens, the “top” in either of these sex acts is almost never the party at risk of infection or other harm; surely he should be the one bearing these dire tattoos next to that occasional disseminator of ills. But if health is the concern, and not just morality, then it hardly makes sense to restrict the tattooing to gay men; nor would the Reverend be the first to suggest that the male generative organ should come with a warning label.

- The Gay and Lesbian Review
January-February 2009

Chinese Year of the Hare

Persons born in the Year of the Hare (1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011) are talented and ambitious. They are popular, entertaining, and often the center of attention. Even though they are well-liked they can be melancholy. They almost never lose their temper and are very good-natured. In the business world they instinctively make right decisions. Nevertheless they are not gamblers. Hares are known for their sense of art and for this reason they often have beautiful homes.


Image: Leenda K.

Tan Lines IX

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Sign for the East

The hare is common in the Yangtze basin and the northern regions [of China].

C. A. S. Williams, in The Encyclopaedia of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, notes that the hare “is an emblem of longevity, often depicted on porcelain, and it represents the fourth of the Twelve Terrestial Branches. This animal is reputed as deriving its origin from the vital essence of the Moon to the influence of which luminary it is consequently subject.”

The Twelve Terrestial Branches are the twelve signs of the Chinese solar zodiac which contains six wild and six domestic animals. The hare is the sign for the East which coincides with the Second Moon; and it also gives its name to The Year of the Hare.

– Excerpted from The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson (Faber and Faber, 1972), p.117.


Image: “Magpies and Hare” by Tsui Bai.

Morning Light XIX

Image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Magical Creatures

Hares and rabbits have long-standing associations with spring, especially the month of March. Both hares and rabbits are lagomorphs (not rodents) and are usually interchangeable for magical purposes.

. . . Many spells and charms draw on the power of these magical creatures. A lucky rabbit’s foot is merely the most famous example. In China, one might carry a green jade rabbit for luck. The fur of a live hare can empower spells for invisibility or speed. Rabbit or hare emblems often appear in rituals for fertility or virility.

Some believe eating hare or rabbit meat makes them become beautiful or romantically desirable. Though taboo in some cultures, hunting rabbits and hares was often allowed for spring holidays, such as Ostara and Beltane. This is undoubtedly related to the near-coinciding fertility festivals.

Altogether, hares and rabbits represent the burgeoning life force of spring, with its boundless exuberance and fruitfulness. Bringing them into your life helps attract these qualities.

- Elizabeth Barrette
(Excerpted from Llewellyn’s Witches’ Calendar 2009)


Image: Detail of “I’m for the Hare that Runs by Night” (digital paint, 2003), part of Martin Herbert’s Totem Animal Series.

Tan Lines VIII

Image: Subjects and photographer unknown.

Affirming Our Essential Goodness

The following is excerpted from Toby Johnson’s book, Gay Spirituality, and focuses on “gay mystical consciousness.”

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Gay identity gives witness to mystical ideals. The deliberate choice to live in the present, accepting death with no pretense of immortality through offspring, affirms that we live in the eternal moment. Saying yes to mortality practices detachment from ego. Transcending ego allows us to realize our oneness with greater consciousness, with life.

As we realize this, we see that only our ego will die. Life goes on. And so we overcome death to the extent we overcome attachment to [the ego]. To see that you are the universe is to see that you cannot die. To see that the universe mirrors you, and is you, is the essence of homosexual attraction.

In the old days, being gay was something people kept secret. For that reason, homosexuality provided a sense of specialness. It was like membership in a special club. That has changed. And that’s good. Though there is still something special about being gay, and there is still a certain amount of persecution that goes with specialness.

We do not need any more martyrs, though we shall likely get them. There are people who carry deep scars that cause them to hate us. They project their own self-hate and sexual confusion onto us. They blame us for all the problems of society. They blame the collapse of tradition values on us. They think that by persecuting us they are somehow dealing with child abuse and broken families. And they create a climate in which violence against homosexuals seems almost patriotic.

Crimes committed against homosexuals are crimes against citizens and cannot be tolerated. . . .

When people are jealous of you and resent what you’ve got, you know you’ve got a treasure. If not, they wouldn’t bother with you, would they?

Accepting things as they are necessarily includes accepting the opposition we face. It also includes striving to create a world in which such violence does not happen. Until then, we must not let the opposition stop us. We must not let ourselves be frightened out of the truth of who we are.

We understandably downplay our experience of being gay. We emphasize the suffering and social difficulties we face. . . . We [do this] to avoid retaliation from the straight people who do not want us proclaiming how lucky we are. We keep a low profile. We poor mouth. But we must tell ourselves the truth about our good luck. We must tell our brothers. This is the good news, the boom of our hero journey, that can save us and them.

We have to believe that being in the altered state of sexual consciousness is a good thing. Any other position is self-defeating. We can create our lives so that this is true. We can take care of ourselves. We can maintain our health and vitality, the glow in our complexion and the flexibility in our muscles. We can protect ourselves from disease. We can work on our moral and psychological well-being, letting go of neurotic behaviors and compulsions. We can cultivate good friendships. We can have positive and delightful sexplay with willing, enthusiastic partners. We can have deep, committed, long-term sexual partnerships. In all these we can affirm our essential goodness.

– Excerpted from Gay Spirituality: The Role of Gay Identity in the Transformation of Human Consciousness by Toby Johnson (Alyson Books, 2000, pp.264-265).

Different Names

The following is excerpted from The Hare by Jill Mason.

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Few animals can have been given as many different names as the hare. Some are very localized and often the hare’s alternative names are associated with cats. This is thought to be because both cats and hares have been linked with witches, as their familiars. Another possibility is that a hare has a split upper lip, similar to that of a cat.

In Wales many of the old names for hares include “cath,” which is the word for cat in Welsh. The old Scots word for a Mountain hare was “malkin,” “mawkin,” or “maukin,” but this does not seem to be in use today. However, there is a country inn in Glen Devon called The Tormaukin which has a sign depicting two Mountain hares with the mountains in the background. Tor means hill.

In some areas of Scotland, hares are known as “fite” hares, fite being the word for white in local dialect. The word “baud” or “bawd” referred to hare in Norfolk. “Wat” or “watt” is another old Norfolk name for a hare. Part of the insignia for the town of Watton in Norfolk depicts a hare (or wat) jumping over a “tun,” an old name for a barrel. The Hare and Barrel is also the name of a pub in Watton. Shakespeare referred to the hare as a “wat,” a term which has also been used in Cornwall.



Many village signs in Norfolk portray features of local interest. The one at Harpley shows a pheasant, hare, and corn. Place names beginning with “Har” sometimes indicate a connection with the hare, so Harpley may well have got its name from the abundance of hares that surround it.