Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/97

Rh the approach of the inkalimeva (a fabulous animal). Those all failed ill the duty and were killed by the other animals. The sixth time that fat is put into the kraal the hare is selected as keeper of the gate, rather against his will. He skilfully makes an end of the dreaded inkalimeva, but as he eats the tail, which should have been reserved for the chief, he has to flee for his life. In Scandinavian mythology Freya is said to have been attended by hares.

Without attempting to found any sweeping generalisation upon the above facts, I may point out that the hare's celebrity is almost as great as its notoriety, and for my own part I am inclined to think that among primitive peoples the hare occupied a very high and honourable place in religion. By-and-by, when animal worship began to yield to something more spiritual, while at the same time the relative character of the hare as contrasted with that of other animals became by experience better known, the hare lost its high estate. It did not at once acquire the repute of being either stupid or inspired by a witch. A blind hare it was, in the North German tale of "The Blue Riband," which ran before the princess, and by plunging in a brook, diving thrice under water, recovered its sight and scampered off, thus teaching her to lead Hans to the same water, with the satisfactory result that after he had plunged in it three times, he, like the hare, recovered his sight. That the flesh of the hare was not eaten in Britain because Boadicea used the hare in augury, could be no reason for the Chinese refusing to eat of it from the earliest dawn of Chinese history. The animal had been sacred, and the tradition perhaps shown in the use of the hare in augury perhaps was that the remembrance of this holiness long lingered. From primitive regard the descent is generally rapid, and we readily find an explanation for the hare's connection with witchcraft in the degradation of its character from the days of Buddha—a sacred animal becomes an uncanny animal, as heathen gods become devils when their worshippers change their faith. The process is a very common one.

It is curious to note that in the same way that many worthy people have from time to time consulted professed charmers, crediting them,