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I have portrayed this hare for Las Fotos de los Lectores de La Vanguardia in a field of Muntanyola, in Osona. We can see her in detail running around and also standing still in the grass, in various positions, observing everything that was happening around her.
Seeing these images we might ask ourselves: Are you sure the hare is so shy? At least, in the European tradition, this animal symbolizes two qualities: speed and shyness. This is attested by several fables that have survived to this day.
The Swedish zoologist Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778), in his zoological classification, gave this significant name to the European mountain hare: Lepus timidus.
One of the best known fables is that of The Tortoise and the Hare, by Aesop. In this story, the hare loses a race for being too confident in his speed, underestimating the tortoise, whom he considered “inferior” and who ends up winning the race thanks to his perseverance.
The hare was considered in ancient times a sacred animal of Aphrodite and Eros due to its high libido. In African folktales he is depicted as a trickster and some of those traditional stories were told among African slaves in America, to the point that they are the basis for Brother Rabbit and Brother Fox, a fable written by American folklorist Joel Chandler Harris. .
On the other hand, many cultures, including Chinese, Japanese, and Mexican, see a hare in the pattern of dark spots on the moon. And the constellation Lepus is also depicted with a hare.
This animal, which in some of these images even seems surprised, has come to be the protagonist of a very popular expression: “make the hare jump”, which refers to when an unexpected event occurs. And it is that, where you least think or expect, the hare jumps.
