Hare-brained

On a dry, sunny day last week I headed off to Salisbury where my dad is currently staying in a care home for some post-hospital rehab. It’s about an hour’s drive south from us and - until you get to the outskirts of Salisbury which was heaving with traffic - absolutely beautiful.

As I drove past the Stonehenge Visitor Centre, I saw three Brown Hares in the field. I see hares often here at home but never three at once.

Of course three hares are an iconic symbol - in a circle sharing three ears - that’s found all over the world. No one’s quite sure where the origins of this symbol lie. Some people suggest it was a popular mason’s mark; some think it represents the Christian trinity, but who really knows?

Also a little bit blurred, are the facts behind the Brown Hare's arrival in Britain. Originally thought to have been introduced by the Romans, we now know it arrived somewhere between the 5th and 3rd centuries BC, so it’s possible that it was other visitors/invaders (the Mountain Hare is native to Scotland, and the Irish Hare to, er, Ireland). However it got here, the Brown Hare has naturalized and thrived. It quickly became a treasured wild neighbour, or perhaps even housemate, and the stories around the hare spread as fast...

Julius Caesar noted that us Brits believed that it was “contrary to divine law to eat hare, chicken or goose. They raise these...for their own amusement or pleasure.” There have been numerous hare graves found, with the bodies carefully buried and unbutchered.

Boudicca used a method of divination that involved releasing a hare from beneath her cloak, after rallying her troops before their uprising in AD61. When the hare ran away in the “auspicious” direction, they knew success was coming.

Like many other things that were “good”, hares became “bad” once christianity took hold here. They became known as shapeshifters, likely to be a witch when in their human form. Although hares are usually solitary, they gather in the spring and have been seen sitting in circles, or a “Hares Parliament”, so naturally that means they’re a gathering of evil witches. #eyeroll

If you were still a pagan, you may well have associated the hare with Ostara or Estre, the Northern European Saxon goddess whose name was taken for Easter. You’d’ve believed this beautiful animal to have strong links to the moon because they’re mostly active at night, spending the daytime hours in a shallow “nest” in long grass or similar shelter.

In one story, Ostara rescued a wounded bird and turned it into a hare. The hare survived but still laid eggs. This myth, combined with the nests they use, make it a good bet that the Easter bunny was based on a hare.

The “Mad March Hare” is part of our folk and literary culture, thanks to the “boxing” they seem to do in the spring. We used to think this was rival males but it turns out more often to be a female fending off the unwanted advances of a male.

Hares were also believed - and given their apparent liking for punching the opposite sex, who can blame them? - to change from male to female or t’other way around, each month. In Wales, there was once a single compensation rate for hares, while other animals were priced differently, according to their sex. If hares were changing back and forth...better just have the one price!

It was thought very unlucky to have a hare cross your path at the start of a journey, and it would take a silver cross or bullet to kill them. If only that were true.

In the 1800s there were an estimated four million Brown Hares in Britain but that number has declined by 80% over the last 100 years. The main problem has been intensified agriculture, with some farmers planting only one crop a year in huge, open fields. Hares need shelter in long grass, and a diverse diet of grasses, herbs and cereal crops. With autumn/winter crops becoming more popular, even the food that remained for them is gone by the spring when they need the energy most.

The hare is also the only animal in Britain that doesn’t have a closed season when it can’t be shot - not even in its breeding season - and it's classified as “Game”. What a disgusting term that is. So big, tough psychopathsImeanpeople with guns can have fun causing the death of an innocent animal. Despite the fact that the Brown Hare is a priority species under the UK Biodiversity Action Plan that aims to expand populations, in reality any old fool can take a shot at it.

What that fool is not allowed to do, legally, is hunt the hare with dogs. Legally. Does this mean the practice has stopped? Nope. I reckon seeing a human cross your path at the start of your journey is pretty bloody unlucky.

The People Formerly Known As The Celts saw the Brown Hare as having feet in the Otherworld. Strong, speedy, shapeshifting and mysterious, they believed they should be approached with caution and respect. I suggest that perhaps we just don’t approach them at all, and leave them to go about their business.