Rabbits and hares – good or evil?

I’ve spent the last 3 days working with 15 or so colleagues putting the final touches to the Castle Drogo Heritage Lottery Fund application for funding for £2.5M to stop the Castle leaking – we have made brilliant progress and I think we have a strong and compelling case for the money – time will tell if I am right and of course I will blog about the outcome here in July when we hear.

This blog however isn’t about that – it is about a little throw away comment that two of my colleagues – Shona and Hannah made in Chagford where we were all based for our Drogo ‘bootcamp’. They told me at a coffee break they were off to see the Tinners Rabbits in the Church in Chagford! What? Well here’s the story of what I found out.

It transpires that there is a ‘boss’ on the roof in the church depicting three rabbits which was the symbol used by the people involved with tin mining on Dartmoor who in the Middle Ages were wealthy people and funded the building of the church. There are 28 church on Dartmoor / Devon where this symbol is found and it is known as the ‘Tinners Rabbits’.

Here is the boss from Chagford Church – its wonderful.

I was really interested in the story so I ‘Googled‘ it and a Da Vinci Code puzzle emerged!

Firstly the image / logo is a clever illusion – each of the three animals has two ears but there are only three ear and secondly these animals are not rabbits – they are hares. Thirdly it emerges that this ‘logo’ was not created by Dartmoor Tinners but has a lineage which dates back 1600 years to pagan times and is not just found in Devon but also in China, Afghanistan and elsewhere in Europe ……

If we step back to Pagan times the hare was a magical / mystical beast. It was associated with female fertility – hares have a gestation period of 28 days – the cycle of the female period which also coincided with the lunar cycle of 28 days. In Saxon times there was a cult of  the hare and there was a Goddess Oestara (oestrous cycle)  or Eostre (Easter) who was said to rule over spring and the dawn.

With the coming of Christianity to England, Paganism declined and was suppressed and the cult of the hare became known as Easter and the hare transformed into a rabbit (the Easter Bunny and the Easter Egg).

The fortunes of the hare also took a downturn – it was not longer portrayed as a magical beat – instead it became a partner of the devil. There are many Dartmoor legends which tell that witches could transform themselves into hares: Bowerman’ Nose, the Witch Hare and the Witch of Dendles Wood.

Make of this all of this what you will but for me it is fascinating. Myths and legends have lineage and are deeply embroiled in ‘spin’!

Why the Dartmoor Tinners adopted the logo remains a mystery -but what a tale. Today the symbol is still used – it is the logo of the wine shop in Chagford – so we return again to rabbit or hare – good or evil. On this one I know where I stand.

Thanks to Legendary Dartmoor for the legwork- a great web site for all things Dartmoor – check it out