Lea Taylor The White Hare

Below is an excerpt of text. Taken from ‘The White Hare’

This is a traditional tale with variations found up and down the length and breadth of the UK. The hare represents a magical creature that is able to shape-shift from human form to hare

She appeared in the village, out of nowhere, to live with her Gran. She was just at that age where she didn’t have to attend school, she was too old. Her grandmother it seemed, had been in the village ever since it first started. Some used to say that she was the one that planted the seed for the old oak tree that stood at the edge of the village. Old Annie had shrunk with age, her back bent and her rheumy eyes looked as though they saw something entirely different to what everyone else saw. When her grand-daughter arrived she set about teaching her domestic duties and how to tend the garden, but kept her well away from the rest of the village and its gossips. Old Annie was wise enough know that the eyes of the village would soon turn its attentions elsewhere, it was just the way things were, part and parcel of the usual rhythms of village life.

Now, it was a well known fact that the men of the village, the farm labourers, saw it as their right to take from the land to help put food on the table. Some fished from the local stream or guddled trout, some set snares for pheasants or wood pigeons and others used their dogs for coursing, chasing rabbits and hares. Every little added to the pot. Of course, we all knew that this was illegal. The Laird never sanctioned this sort of thing, why would he, anything to keep the tenants and labourers in their place. Occasionally someone was caught and fined - to set an example to the rest of us. The activities would stop for a while but then, when harvests failed from too much rain or drought, or work was hard to come by, everyone did what they could to keep their families going.

One day, around about the same time that Annie’s grand-daughter arrived in the village, I was out with my father and some of his cronies. We had our dogs with us and had set out early across the fields with the intention of finding some rabbits ‘for the pot’ and also putting an end to a dispute about whose was the best dog. It was one of those hazy summer days, the heat was still in the ground and as it rose, gave off a fuzzy moveable image. The smell of summer was caught in the breeze from the warmth of the earth, the sweetness of the haystacks, the green of the shady trees and the fruit and cobwebs of the hedgerows.

She stood among the hedgerows, engrossed with picking the brambles. Delicate fingers detaching them from the bushes and dropping them into the basket she carried on her arm. From a distance she appeared to look like any of the other children in Temple village but when you moved closer something was not quite right.

It may have been the shape of her head, smaller that seemed normal, or that small button nose that had a nervous twitch to it. It was as though her face couldn't keep still. She was a fair haired child, pale as milk and delicate too. Her eyes were unusually round, rimmed red, giving way to luminous brown diminishing to blue, like melting pools. The rest of her frame was slight and all sinew. She fidgeted and was never one to seek or be seen in company, always at the hedgerows, picking and twitching.

She appeared in the village, out of nowhere, to live with her Gran. She was just at that age where she didn’t have to attend school, she was too old. Her grandmother it seemed, had been in the village ever since it first started. Some used to say that she was the one that planted the seed for the old oak tree that stood at the edge of the village. Old Annie had shrunk with age, her back bent and her rheumy eyes looked as though they saw something entirely different to what everyone else saw. When her grand-daughter arrived she set about teaching her domestic duties and how to tend the garden, but kept her well away from the rest of the village and its gossips. Old Annie was wise enough know that the eyes of the village would soon turn its attentions to elsewhere, it was just the way things were, part and parcel of the usual rhythms of village life.

Our group stood about and talked a while then stopped to watch my Father’s watchful gaze. His body spoke before he did, leaning forward, eyes narrowing, forehead furrowed. He spied something moving at the bottom of the field to the right. Without questioning we let the dogs loose. They took off at high speed, covering ground in powerful bounds, the pack, neck and neck, heading straight for the boundary hedge. Soon they had flushed it out. A white hare. Out it sprang, into the clearing, stopping momentarily to get its bearings. One of the dogs was within a hare’s-breath of catching it. We all gasped out loud. Then, the creature zig-zagged across the field at lightening speed, long ears flattened against its head, legs stretched out moving fluidly, so fast the dogs were virtually left standing. We stood, open-mouthed watching it streak past us until it disappeared across another field to the side of old Annie’s house and out of sight.

‘A white hare’ my father gasped. He leaned on his tall stick and looked each of us in the eye, ‘Do you know how lucky and rare they are?’

All that evening the men talked of nothing else. Sitting by the fire in the pub one of the men, old Jimmy, produced his lucky talisman from beneath his cap. It was a hare’s foot. “To ward off evil spirits” he said. Bert, stopped to lite his pipe and, between puffing out plumes of smoke, began to tell us his story about seeing a black hare on the road one summer’s eve and coming home to find his house on fire. More stories followed, tales of good and bad omens all featuring a hare or a rabbit. The more they talked the more the hare became a prize to be had. It was agreed that another small hunting party would venture out the following weekend with the specific intention of catching the white hare.

It was a full moon that weekend, one that hung full and low in the sky, it’s belly an orangey-red as though it had been dipped in a fire. A blood moon. Many pointed at it fixed in the sky and said in guarded tones that it was a bad omen or signified something bad was to come.

It had been decided that hunting the white hare would take place after the sun had gone down. ‘The moon will provide enough light for what we need as well as cover from the Laird’s law enforcers’ laughed one of the men as he rubbed his hands with glee.

Seven of us set off, three dogs each, straining at their leashes. There was an air of excitement about the evening, an expectation despite the foreboding moon. It took less than half an hour for the dogs to flush the hare out from its form. Away, across the fields it sprinted, flat out, swerving this way and that. Above the bats darted, black wings casting fleeting shadows, silent but for the crush of the cornstalks underfoot and the harsh breath of the chasing dogs. Only the blood moon bore witness, her light pooling across the landscape in a dim golden glow.