Revenge of the rabbits
Revenge of the rabbits
#19—One for the vegetarians and vegans
Welcome to Mind Flexing, your weekly thought expedition to everywhere and anywhere. Strap on your boots (or put your feet up), take a deep breath, and let’s get flexing.
This week’s Mind Flexing is a half-stack, an entertaining intermission to allow me time to catch my breath and provide an opportunity for the rabbits from last week’s story to have their revenge.
I was wholly conscious when writing How to catch a rabbit last week that, although it being an account of history, the visual imprint left could nevertheless be distressing for some. So I thank my vegetarian and vegan readers for persisting.
For those who may not have seen the comments, Kate Morgan Reade of Verbihund Café shone a light down a most amusing path—that of Medieval drolleries. In particular, drolleries of very, very bad bunnies. Bunnies that do things like beating a harmless little Daikini while listening to a merry tune on the bagpipe. It must be a wonderful tune because one bunny gangster would like the beating to be carried out with greater discretion, or perhaps they’re just off beat.
These drolleries—small decorative images in the margin of manuscripts—were most popular from about 1250 to 1500. They often depicted fantastical creatures formed out of mismatched body parts, such as the head of a human poking out of a snail’s shell. And then there were the bad bunnies, which were a whole genre unto themselves. Far from meek and innocent as one might assume, these bunnies ruled in a darkly humorous, topsy-turvy world where rabbits could enact their revenge on humankind, and by the looks of it, hunting dogs, I’m sure with just cause.
The artist who depicted these bunnies with stunned-mullet eyes and what I think must be swear words coming out of jousting bunny’s mouth sure knew how to make readers laugh. It’s quite delightful to revel in these Medieval bunny jokes. I imagine them to be as resonant today as they ever where and if our distant ancestors were alive and with us in the same room, I’m sure we’d share a bit of a giggle.
Look at the delightfully terrifying arms on this boxing bunny about to take down a knight.
For those of you who are regular readers, you’d be right in guessing that I looked up the etymology of drollerie (also spelled drollery). I was curious to see if my suspicion that the word shared a history with ‘droll’ was correct, and indeed the two words are connected, both derived from the French word drôle for ‘comical’.
And there you have it—the rabbits have had their revenge and I shall think twice before ever suggesting that a football team associated with bunnies is not scary.
Thursday is the new Wednesday
For those who noticed, and perhaps no one did… yes, this post has arrived a day late and I’ve decided to keep it that way. Thursdays are mostly kinder to me, but I’ve been stubborn in sticking to posting on Wednesday nights in the belief that I’ll squeeze more work out. While that’s true, I’ve exhausted myself and last night, I fell asleep. So Thursdays it is. I’ll try to stay awake this time!
Things I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack this week
To the moon—read by Patti Smith
Patti Smith reads this famous poem by Giacomo Leopardi in its English translation.
What I Learned in My First Year as a Widow—by Mary Roblyn
“…a two-ingredient recipe with no instructions.” Substack wants to hug Mary Roblyn. Her reason for returning to writing is heartbreaking, but we are grateful she is has.
There Are People Who Will Never Like You—by Laura Kennedy
Laura’s cranky, and I get it. I live in Australia too!
Thank you for Mind Flexing with me. If you enjoyed this essay, please subscribe, comment below, click the ❤️ button, or share it with someone who would appreciate it.
I’ll be back next week. Until then, keep 💪.
This is wonderful, Alia! Thank you for posting, and for answering the question forming in my mind, too, about the etymology of drollerie. It takes a properly weird person to know another! And btw I just double-checked the -ei or -ie thing for "weird" because sometimes I think I know things, and then I do a stupid thing, so while releived (kidding!) relieved that is was, in fact, -ei, I saw this:
weird
noun ARCHAIC•SCOTTISH: a person's destiny.
From OE wyrd, "destiny,"of Germanic origin. The adjective (late ME) originally meant "having the power to control destiny," and was used especially in the Weird Sisters, originally referring to the Fates, later the witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth; the latter use gave rise to the sense "unearthly" (early 19th century).
How wytchy and cool is that?
But back from the weeds. In the U.S., we are running a big steaming bulk discount on the most disgusting Republican politicians and their coterie of zombies. The governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, wrote in her memoir that her 14 month-old PUPPY named Cricket would not "behave," went after some chickens, and bit her. It pissed her off, so she took the poor puppy to a gravel pit and shot her. WTF? That puppy had some common sense, if anyone is asking me—except for failing to hit that woman's jugular. The drawing of the drollerie bunny with a spear-wielding dog hoisted on his shoulders made me hope that Cricket will come back and serve up a helping of karma to that monstrous woman!