Mad, Mad, Mad March Hare says Alice .......

Hares have been the theme of the week.

Not that Hair is something that I rejoice in or miss, but we have wigs, not for me, I hasten to add but for the event we are planning at St Andrew's on Grey Mare Hill on June 22nd.

My poem on Hares is coming along. On my last visit I saw two Hares in the woodland on the approach to the church.

I immediately thought of R S Thomas' poem about stumbling across the still warm 'form' of a Hare
(A form is a nest where a Hare will bear its young) and reading into it the idea of a God who is always going before you but whose image you become conscious of. Even though S/he has gone there is a sense of a presence.

But my Poem is more narrative and tries to tell the tale of how the Hare has become almost a mythological figure

But since moving to Snods Edge and Shotley Fields Hares have become familiar neighbours.

Opening the bedroom curtains last week there were five Hares in the field opposite standing, running and yes ... boxing.

Then on our Wednesday walk again Hares in a field.

Conscious of our presence, guarded, but equally clear that with a flick and a run, a dart and a sudden turn they could avoid and escape us with no problem at all.

My favourite Hare story was my Father, we were returning to Manchester from a weekend in the country in our old Austin 7, four of us in a tiny car with luggage, when the local gamekeeper, Bro Lomas, offers my Father a Hare.

Picking it up by its back legs he opened the car door.

My Mother was immediately on the offensive. No, she said firmly, not in the car.

Recognising the steeliness of the glint in her eye my Father decided that a Plan B was necessary. So he asked if Bro Lomas had any string and proceeded to tie the Hare between the cars headlights, across the Radiator grill and so we drove from Derbyshire to Manchester with the Hare which was then 'jugged' in the traditional way and eaten.

Hares were brought to Britain by the Romans along with Roads, Baths and Ground Elder as a foodstuff but rapidly became naturalised and became incorporated into our folklore and story telling featuring in tales of Boudica's victory over the Romans in AD 61 (Boudica feasted on hares entrails which gave her mythical powers), but inevitably they were Christianised too and the motif of three Hares as a symbol of the Trinity has decorated a number of Churches.

But the breeding season lasts until September and the Hare only occupies a small indentation in the ground, known as a 'form' so I look forward to making the acquaintance of the Mad March Hare and hopefully as Alice observes as it is almost June maybe it won't be as mad as it was in March.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Are you sitting comfortably then I will begin ........

  Do you remember  Listen with Mother  the programme always opened with the phrase "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin".   My memory of it brings back strong emotions as I recall as a young child how the ritual involved a sense of snuggling down on my mother’s knee to hear the story being read.   In our psalm today, psalm 34 we are invited to say with the psalmist at verse 8, Happy are those who take refuge in him.   The idea of taking refuge involves quite literally hiding yourself in God or in your parents love.   Which is why I found myself transported back in time to the memory of hiding myself in my Mother’s protection as I was asked ‘Are you sitting comfortably?’   This image of a small child wrapped in it’s Mother’s arms, protected, warm, loved, the sense of being happy, as the psalmist invites us to imagine the possibility of taking refuge in God.   Of being protected, warm and loved which brings with it a deep sense of cont...
Read more

To Theophilus friend of God ......

  People who like quizzes might prefer me to begin with a question such as: Who wrote a quarter of the New Testament? The answer is of course St Luke. Luke the Evangelist wrote both the Gospel that bears his name but also the Acts of the Apostles. As an evangelist Luke was writing from the perspective of a historian about events that he had not witnessed personally. However his writing in the Acts of the Apostles suggests that he was describing activities in which he was involved. Luke indicates that he was not an eyewitness to the events described in his Gospel he does 'repeatedly' use the word 'we' in describing the missionary journeys that he presumably undertook with Paul and which he describes in the Acts of the Apostles. In Colossians Paul writes: Our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings.  A near contemporary historian, Epiphanious, suggests that Luke could have been one of the seventy we read about in the Gospel set for the Feast of St Luke. As ...
Read more

Conviviality and a personal history .........

  There are many synonyms:  friendliness, geniality, affability, amiability, congeniality, good humour, cordiality, warmth, warm-heartedness, good nature, sociability, gregariousness, clubbability, companionability, cheerfulness, cheeriness, good cheer, joviality, jollity, gaiety, liveliness, festivity, bonhomie. And one rather sad antonym: unfriendliness.   In interdiac the definition of conviviality has three elements drawn from an understanding of the social and community aspects of life in the Iberian Peninsula where Moslems were able to live freely and openly with their Jewish and Christian neighbours.   The conviviality of life in 19 th  Century Paris with its free and unconstrained conversation.   The work and writings of Ivan Illich in which he described the transformation of relationships between people and their environment and technology.   In Manchester in the early 1970’s I worked in an inner-city environment which was scheduled ...
Read more