And Now For Something Completely Different: Killer Rabbits
Smithfield Decretals, c. 1300, British Library, London, UK. Detail.
This essay has nothing to do with anything, because my brain and heart need a vacation from thinking about Important and Disquieting Things. So today I’m diving back into my past academic work in medieval history to offer you: bunnies striking back.
If you remember the Beast of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a “foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent,” then you’re one of my people. You also probably thought the Beast was a typical Python exaggeration.
Well, maybe. Or maybe not.
Medieval manuscripts are positively a-twitter with beasts of all sorts, lurking behind illuminated letters, dancing in the margins. And most of the animals portrayed are generally well-behaved.
Until they’re not. The fluffy adorable bunnies that frolic around the edges sometimes become stone-cold killers. And, really, who can blame then? Often it’s a matter of turning the tables on the humans who hunt them, as in this illustration from the 1340s (Smithfield Decretals, London):
The Smithfield Decretals, decorated in London, 1340s: Royal MS 10 E IV, f.
Bunny vengeance turns the table in a similar way against the dogs used for rabbiting: another entry in the Smithfield Decretals shows a bunny executioner hanging a hound:
The Smithfield Decretals, decorated in London, 1340s: Royal MS 10 E IV, f.
There are other bunnies willing to take up arms against their dog foes, though sometimes in puzzling ways: in this French manuscript (Breviary of Renaud de Bar), a bunny rides into battle atop a snail (well, yeah) while the hound rides on the back of a—wait for it—bunny (who, to be fair, looks like he’s just noticed he’s fighting on the wrong side):
Not content to simply attack hunters and dogs, bunnies take the fight to the street, going after knights (most of whom seem to take the savage beasts very seriously indeed). In the following images you’ll see a knight swinging at a rearing rabbit; a rabbit preparing to cleave an unfortunate ruler (both from the Gorleston Psalter), and a demon bunny baker in an English Pontifical whose expression bodes no good at all for his customers.
The Gorleston Psalter, East Anglia, England, 1310-24: Add 49622, fol. 13v
Pontifical, England, 1st quarter of the 15th century: Lansdowne MS 451, f. 6r
All that to say that rabbits can only take so much abuse before they fight back. In medieval manuscripts, in any case.
I can’t end this essay, of course, without bringing it back to books and reading. One of my all-time favorite novels is Richard Adams’ wonderful Watership Down. If you haven’t read it, do so; you’ll never look at rabbits the same again!