Bad bunnies!

I was at our local fish and chip shop today getting an order in for supper to eat with Doctor Who – no we weren’t having visitors, just watching the new BBC series.

Seems like a couple of the girls who work there were having a theological quandary, and the Crow not having any better sense opened his mouth.

“So what’s Easter all about? I don’t understand it.”

“Well”, I said in my best should-have-been-a-vicar voice, “on Good Friday Christians remember the crucifixion of Jesus. Then three days later they celebrate his resurrection on Easter Monday”.

“So what’s the egg all about.”

“Well the egg symbolises the stone on Jesus’ tomb which was rolled away when he came back to life. In many cultures the egg is a symbol of rebirth.”

The girl nodded her head as she took all this in, then screwed up her face and resumed her line of interrogation ... “So what’s with the Easter Bunny”.

“Ah … well, you got me”. I had to concede I was fighting a losing battle at this point.

The problem is I have issues with the Easter Bunny. As I’ve mentioned before I used to live on the Isle of Portland, where they have strange local ways – they see the bunny as a harbinger of ill omen, and the use of the “R” word as in r-a-b-b-i-t is very much frowned upon.

At first this seems all very silly, but living there a few years it slowly rubs off on you. All it takes is a couple of times of saying “rabbit” in the local pub and watching the room turn silent and dour whilst every head turn to face you accusingly. Then you realise it’s not a clever thing to do if you want to avoid your house being burned to the ground, as the locals are a bit restless over this.

With good reason it seems. The Isle of Portland’s primary business is quarrying stone – St Paul’s Cathedral is made of Portland stone. If a warren of bunnies were seen near the walls of a quarry, it often was the precursor to a disaster. The bunnies tunnels would often weakened the quarry walls, and could cause a landslide. Hence there was a unique link on Portland between bunnies and ill omen.

This meant posters of the recent Wallace and Gromit film had to be subtly changed for the island’s residents – read more here!



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