Rabbits, wine and murderous mayhem

The cutest rabbit photo ever. But keep him away from the sacramental wine!

Wikipedia tells me the Easter Bunny probably originated in Germany, and was introduced to the US by German settlers who came to Pennsylvania. This doesn't really explain why people thought an egg-carrying rabbit should be associated with Christ's resurrection in the first place, but I suppose his true origin lies in a murky undocumented zone of pagan practices and folklore survivals.

I don't think the English who settled around here paid much attention to rabbits or hares, but the local Algonquians sure did. Roger Williams noticed his 17th century Narragansett neighbors treated rabbits very well, and wrote: "They have a reverend esteem of this creature, and conceive there is some deitie in it." The Ojibwa, who lived west beyond New England counted Nanabozho, the Great Rabbit, as one of their chief gods.

The Algonquians who lived in northern New England had mixed feelings about hares. Last year I wrote about the Great White Hare, who presides over the souls of the dead on a frozen mountain. He's like the Easter Bunny's evil twin! But even the typical, non-supernatural white hare was associated with blizzards. The Penobscot said hares sat in their holes and counted snowflakes, excreting a pellet each time a flake fell. That's a lot of poop!

But there are multiple species of rabbits and hares in Maine, and the rabbit (as opposed to the northern hare) was a humorous trickster character in many Penobscot stories. He's a little bit Bugs Bunny, a little bit Charles Manson. One tale that's strangely relevant for Easter begins when Rabbit pointlessly kills the children of the Fisher while he's away. When the Fisher finds out what Rabbit has done, he pursues him through the forest and swamps, intent on revenge.

The chase goes on for days. Finally, exhausted from running, Rabbit finds himself on the steps of a small church with the Fisher closing in. He knows he can't win a fair fight against the Fisher, so he uses trickery. He transforms himself into a Catholic priest. (Note: this story was collected in the 1930s, long after the Penobscot had converted to Catholicism.)

"Come on into the church, my son", he says to the Fisher, "and tell me your problems." The Fisher comes in, and tells the priest how his children were savagely murdered, and how he wants to rip Rabbit into pieces and eat him alive. "Oh, that's terrible", Rabbit the priest says. "Have some of this red wine - it will make you feel better. Have some of this bread, too."

The Fisher drinks the wine and eats the bread, and then eats some more. Rabbit the priest gives him even more, and more, until the Fisher falls asleep drunk. Rabbit takes this chance to turn back into animal form, and runs off. When the Fisher wakes up he realizes he's been tricked, and starts pursuing Rabbit again. And according to the story, they're chasing each other still.

There you go. Rabbits, wine and the eucharist all in one New England folk tale. Happy Easter!

(The story about Rabbit and Fisher is from Frank Speck's 1935 article on Penobscot religious beliefs.)

The Great White Hare

Symbol of spring, or ruler of the Underworld?

Easter is on the way, so my mind has drifted to bunnies and colored eggs. I couldn't think of any good lore about colored eggs, but I read a good story about a bunny (actually a hare) in Frank Speck's article 1935 article "Penobscot Tales and Religious Beliefs" in The Journal of American Folklore.

According to some of Speck's Penobscot informants, a long time ago there was a giant White Hare who lived on a far northern mountain which was inhabited by lots and lot of little white hares. Sounds cute, right? Not so. The White Hare ruled cruelly over his smaller subjects, who were originally men but whose brains had been removed and eaten by malevolent witches. Brainless, they drifted north to the White Hare's wintry abode where they were transformed into hares. (Speck points out that in many Algonquian cultures the White Hare is rules the land of the dead, so in this story the mountain could represent the afterlife, and those brainless men the souls of the dead.)

For quite some time the witches keep eating brains and sending men to the White Hare, whose mountain became covered with thousands and thousands of hares. Meanwhile, the poor Penobscot are starving to death. Winter has struck, and there's no game to be found. Plus, I guess, a lot of their hunters have been de-brained, so things are bad for the people left behind.

Eventually Glooskap saves the day. He braves the wall of perpetual blizzards that surrounds the northern mountain and, after an epic battle, slays the White Hare. He frees all the little white hares, who scamper away into the woods. The Penobscot are saved from starvation, because they capture and eat the white hares. Basically, the souls of the dead cycle back into the natural world, and sustain their living descendants. Oh, and Glooskap also slays the witches by sticking them head first into the ground like sticks.

This story does fit the Easter season pretty well. In addition to bunnies, it has death, resurrection, and feasting (although in a non-Christian context). You probably won't hear during Sunday services.

There is another version of the White Hare story, though, which doesn't feature Glooskap at all, but another hero named Snowy Owl. Snowy Owl defeats the witches, but doesn't go after the White Hare at all. At the end of the story the White Hare is still up there in the north, collecting hare-shaped human souls in his icy mountain abode.