Hare Horror in Furness! Return of the Supernatural Bunnies April 14, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Beach has recently been enjoying the splendour of supernatural rabbits and hares. Yes, dear reader, do you remember the thud of paranormal poltergeist bunnies? What about the legendary Baum Rabbit? Or the Welsh ghost rabbit as big as a sheep? Or Boudicca’s sacrificial hare? Or the Mann witch trial hare? However, everything that he has shown to date pales into moon-white plainness compared to the Hare of the Dobbie of Furness. Now dobbies (dobby, dobbie) are, for the uninitiated, a northern country ghost, found particularly in northern Lancashire and Westmorland. Beach has always found that name ‘dobby’ to be spectacularly unthreatening. But the Furness dobbie made thing so much worse by walking around the local fells – prepare yourself for the full horror! – with a hare in his pocket.
At such times, when the sound of footsteps, muffled by the snow, was heard between the soughs and moans of the wailing wind, the women cried, ‘Heaven save us; ’tis th’ White Dobbie,’ as, convulsively clutching their little ones closer to their broad bosoms, they crept nearer to the blazing log upon the hearth, and gazed furtively and nervously at the little diamond-paned window, past which the restless wanderer was making his way, his companion running along a little way in advance, for not of the mysterious man alone were the honest people afraid. In front of him there invariably ran a ghastly-looking, scraggy white hare, with bloodshot eyes. No sooner however did anyone look at this spectral animal than it fled to the wanderer, and jumping into his capacious pocket, was lost to sight.
Do you feel the fear or have you been ground into unresponsiveness by the internet? This is how one woman encountered the dobbie and his pet.
Suddenly she uttered a shrill shriek, for she heard a hissing whisper at her ear and felt an icy breath upon her cheek. She dared not turn round, for she saw that the door opening upon the churchyard remained closed as before, and that occasionally passing within the range of her fixed stare, a white hare with blood-red eyes gambolled round the belfry.
Beach has tried and tried but he cannot recreate the suspense that evidently once so thrilled through the good folk of Furness as they listened to this story. As to why dobbie was running around with a hare in his pocket opinions are divided. But some of the older hands believed that the hare was the spirit of his victim (pre- or post-mortem)
Can anyone do better than this in the supernatural rabbit/hare stakes? Beach for once is confident that they cannot: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Typhon, 30 April 2016: I visited the page of Dr. Shuker and lo and behold, there was also mention of a ghost rabbit. Now since I know that you are very fond of evil spectral rabbits, I thought I send you the link and the passage in question:
Reputedly, an eerie spectral rabbit, pure white in colour and emitting a hideous screaming cry, has been encountered spasmodically in an area of Cobridge in northern Staffordshire, England, that is known locally as The Grove. It is claimed that this white rabbit is the restless ghost of teenager John Holdcroft, who was strangled to death by fellow teenager Charles Shaw one day in August 1833 after Shaw had accused him of cheating at a game of pitch and toss. Terrified by what he had done, Shaw hung a noose around his friend’s neck and tried to pretend that he had committed suicide, but he later confessed to the murder and was sentenced to transportation. As for the rabbit, its eldritch shrieks are supposedly John Holdcroft’s death screams.
14.04.2016
And also this from the same blog, but another entry:
While walking alone one bright summer morning through Windsor Great Park, Sibell Lilian Blunt-Mackenzie, 3rd Countess of Cromartie (1878-1962), saw a bizarre-looking animal slowly approaching her. It resembled a hare, and moved with a typically leporine, loping gait too, but it was huge, as big as a goat! Making it even more caprine in appearance, however, was the pair of curved horns that it bore upon its head. The countess was so astonished by this uncanny beast that she stood motionless, until, as it passed by her, she struck out at it with her parasol – and it immediately vanished! A strange tale indeed, but when dealing with creatures as magical and evanescent as hares, nothing should really surprise us. Or, to put it another way: hare today, gone tomorrow!
I didnt know the UK is so obsessed with rabbits 😉
Ruth B writes on the same: Pardon my French, but, Good Grief! that was huge picture of a blood-eyed rabbit to spring on an unsuspecting reader! I refer you to, as my entry, the perennially scary (read here, “I laughed my ass off”) movie…Night of the Lepus. I saw it over 40 years ago at a dollar movie with a bunch of equally bored friends dodging homework on a weeknight during college. I went expecting a good horror movie (not knowing what a Lepus was and too lazy to dig out a dictionary and look it up) and thought I was gonna die from laughing and groaning at a first rate bad movie! Not suitable for children, but most adults would find it funny.
