Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/467

Rh Marcellius Burdigalensis a charm, in which, after you have "caught your hare", you pluck from it the fur needed ad dolorem coli, and then let it go again, bidding it carry the disorder with it.

"Fuge, fuge, lepuscule, et tecum aufer coli dolorem." "In which", says Mr. Leland, "the hare appears as a scapegoat. It may be observed that all this ceremony of catching a hare, letting it go, and bidding it run and carry away the disorder, is still in familiar use in Tuscany."

X. We have already noticed the very old and close connection between the hare and the moon. A large category of hare-myths have arisen out of the supposed likeness of the spots upon the moon's face to the figure of a hare. The story of the hare offering himself as a meal to the hungry Buddha, who in return translated him to the moon, is well known, and occurs with many variations in Eastern legend. Indeed, the great moon-hare appears to have been an object of reverence in most parts of the world; and, to this day, little children in Swabia are told that it is wrong to make shadows of hares upon the wall, because they represent the sacred moon. And through its mythological connection with the moon the hare acquires a special significance, which, by a strange coincidence, specially entitles it to be associated with the Christian Easter. The moon's periodic death and revival suggest thoughts of Resurrection and Immortality. Thus, according to Taoist fable, the moon-hare is a slave of the genii, who employ it in pounding the drugs which compose the elixir of life. In the moon is a cassia-tree, and under the cassia-tree squats the lunar hare, always employed in concocting the immortal draught. In a curiously interesting myth, which