From mad March hare to golden hare…

The mad March Hare in Alice in Wonderland, portrayed in Disney's latest movie - click on the picture to visit the official website

It’s that time of year again when, allegedly, hares go mad. According to my Wild Life Through the Year “bible” from the 1940s, “It is in March that you usually see the first signs of the quaint and amusing courtship antics of the hare, whereas rabbits have been breeding since the beginning of the year.”

Just to be clear, I will be talking here about the European hare (Lepus europaeus), and also the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus).

I think I once saw a hare in a field as I travelled on a train through the red fields of Devon, but other than that I have seen only rabbits. When I was a child we had only to look over the garden wall to see the rabbits running around in an old cider apple orchard. My father once shot one with an airgun and I can remember its horrible green grass-filled intestines as he tried to gut it with a blunt pen-knife so we could cook it. I think he gave up and we never did eat it…

The hare, left, is bigger and more athletic than the rabbit, right

You can tell hares and rabbits apart quite easily if they are side by side, but of course it’s not always that simple when you see something brown and fluffy running around a field.

Most people would describe rabbits as more cuddly. Hares are bigger and more athletic, their ears are particularly long and they have black markings on their fur and a longer, less round tail than the classic white bunny scut.

Boxing hares by Cath Inglis - click on the picture to visit the artist's website

Their habits are also very different. Rabbits live in large numbers underground in burrows while hares are more solitary and make a nest on the ground, sometimes of flattened grass, called a form. This goes with their breeding habits, as rabbit “kits” are born blind, hairless and helpless, safe underground, while baby hares or “leverets” are born with fur and with their eyes open so they are up and running quite quickly.

As for the “mad March hare” – one hosts the mad Hatter’s tea party in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and Alice says: “The March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad – at least not so mad as it was in March.”

This phrase “As mad as a March hare” seems to go way back and appeared first in Chaucer’s “Friar’s Tale” in the late 14th century.

The Year of the Hare - a novel which is one of many items available from the Hare Preservation Trust

Hares can be seen boxing each other in March (and some other times) and it used to be thought that they were male hares fighting over breeding rights to the females, but it now seems it is usually a female boxing the ears of a male, either to say she isn’t ready to mate yet, or maybe to test out his determination!

There is an excellent Hare Preservation Trust in the UK and as well as working to protect hares and share information, it has some interesting merchandise for sale, including cards, pictures, books, clothes, textile gifts and jewellery.

One of the most amazing pieces of hare jewellery ever must surely be the golden hare pendant with tinkling bells made by Kit Williams as the prize for solving his “treasure hunt” book “Masquerade”, published in 1979. I have a copy of the book, although I was too young to get involved in the gold rush it caused.

The golden hare jewel made by Kit Williams as the prize in his treasure hunt book Masquerade

The front cover of Masquerade, by Kit Williams

It was a picture book containing cryptic clues and riddles that eventually led to the jewel, buried in a crock in the shadow of Catherine of Aragon’s Cross at Ampthill in Bedfordshire.

Tens of thousands of questers all over the world tried to find the treasure but in the end it went to someone who (it was later found) had inside knowledge, which was a terrible shame, as around the same time someone else had actually solved all the riddles and worked out the answer for real.

For several decades now Kit Williams has lived as a recluse, but carried on painting, some of his work being of a rather “titillating” nature but still beautifully detailed and colourful.

The BBC did a fascinating TV programme about him last year, in which he was reunited with his fabulous golden hare.

An illustration from Kit Williams' Masquerade - note the harebells (Campanula rotundifolia) as well as the hare...

Another lovely illustrator of the 1970s was Alan Aldridge, whose book The Butterfly Ball , with verses by William Plomer, I bought in 1973. I have just noticed there is a hare in this book, too…

Harlequin Hare, from The Butterfly Ball

Here I come, here I come!
I’m Harlequin Hare!
I jingle and jangle, tinkle and strum!
I’m mad, and enjoy it! I make them all stare
Turning head-over-heels now and then in mid-air!

I’m ready and willing
To box for a shilling,
Can sprint like a flash, and play crazy new tricks:
I’ll get in a fix
What do I care?
I’m Harlequin Hare!

The madder the gladder’s my motto as all
Who see me agree;
I prance and I dance, and I caracole on
With cymbals and bells and accordion.
You can bet that I’ll be
In good time tonight for the Butterfly Ball –
Harlequin Hare
Will be there, will be there!

After all my gushing enthusiasm for hares, I hate to admit it, but I did once eat “jugged hare” or “civet de lièvre” when on holiday in France and enjoyed it very much! It was tender, dark and rich, including as it does some hare’s blood and port wine. Sorry about that, but although I am a nature lover, I am not a vegetarian…

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