The Grant, the Hare, and the Survival of a Medieval Folk Belief

Abstract : Citation : Online Sources : Other Notes

View this article on the Folklore website or download the accepted manuscript (pdf).

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Abstract

In the third book of Otia Imperialia (c.1211), Gervase of Tilbury describes numerous wonders, among them an English belief regarding the Grant, a sparkling-eyed entity shaped like a bipedal foal, whose appearance racing through the streets forewarns of fire. This creature, attested to nowhere but in Gervase’s work, is something of a mystery for folklorists, who have tried to draw connections to other supernatural beings based on its name and its appearance. What has gone overlooked is the fact that the same elements of the Grant’s fire-omen belief existed well into the twentieth century in parts of England, albeit applied to hares. This article suggests that the Grant is an exaggerated hare, while exploring the larger topic of why it is that hares are so often associated with fire in European folklore.

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Citation

Pentangelo, Joseph. 2019. The Grant, the Hare, and the Survival of a Medieval Folk Belief. Folklore 130(1), 48–59.

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Online Sources

Many of the sources that I refer to in this and my other papers are publicly available online for free. This section provides links to all such sources. (It’s not a complete reference list.) Please let me know if you find any of these links to be broken!

Billson, Charles J. 1892. The Easter Hare. Folklore 3(4), 441–466.
(Archive.org)

Black, William George. 1883. The Hare in Folk-Lore. The Folk-Lore Journal 1(3), 84–90.
(Archive.org)

Brand, John. 1842. Observations on Popular Antiquities. London: Charles Knight & Co.
(Archive.org)

Britten, James. 1887. The Hare in Folk Lore. The Folk-Lore Journal 5(3), 260–267.
(Archive.org)

Browne, Thomas. 1658. Pseudodoxia Epidemica. London: Edward Dod.
(Archive.org)

Butler, E. M. 1898. The Houses. In Edmund W. Howson & George Townsend Warner (eds), Harrow School, 35–53. London: Edward Arnold.
(Google Books)

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(Archive.org)

Daniels, Cora Linn & C.M. Stevans. 1903. Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.
(Archive.org)

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(Archive.org)

Farmer, John S. & W.E. Henley. 1896. Slang and Its Analogues, vol. 4. London: Printed for Subscribers Only.
(Google Books)

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(Archive.org)

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(Archive.org)

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(Sfgate.com)

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(Archive.org)

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(Bozemankissfm.com)

Grimm, Jacob. 1880–1888. Teutonic Mythology, 4 volumes. Translated by J.S. Stallybrass. London: W. Swan, Sonnenschein, & Allen.
(I, II, III, IV : all Archive.org)

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(Archive.org)

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(Archive.org)

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(Archive.org)

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(Archive.org)

Liebrecht, Felix. 1856. Des Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia. Hannover: Carl Rümpler.
(Archive.org)

London, British Library Additional MS. 49622, Gorleston Psalter.
(British Library)

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(Archive.org)

Neck, J. Stevens. 1886. Popular Beliefs and Sayings. Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association for the Advancement of Science, Literature, and Art 18, 105.
(Archive.org)

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodley 264.
(Early Manuscripts at Oxford University)

Potts, Thomas. 1845. The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster. London: W. Stansby, 1613. Reprinted in: James Crossley. Potts’s Discovery of Witches. Manchester: Charles Simms & Co.
(Archive.org)

Read, D. H. Moutray. 1916. Some Characteristics of Irish Folklore. Folklore 27(3), 250–278.
(Archive.org)

Salisbury, Jesse. 1893. A Glossary of Words and Phrases Used in S.E. Worcestershire. London: J. Salisbury.
(Archive.org)

Schlager, Patricius. 1909. Gervase of Tilbury. In Charles George Herbermann et al. (eds), The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6, 536. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
(New Advent)

S.L. 1867. Folk Lore: The Hare. Notes and Queries 3S(12), 362.
(Archive.org)

Sweeting, W.D. 1886. 132. Folk-Lore of the Hare. Northamptonshire Notes & Queries 1, 161–162.
(Google Books)

Thiselton-Dyer, T.F. 1878. English Folk-Lore. London: Hardwicke & Bogue.
(Archive.org)

Thomas, Northcote W. 1908. Animals. In J. Hastings (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 1, 483–535. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
(Archive.org)

Thomas, William J. 1847. The Folk-Lore of Shakespeare. The Athenaeum 2(1039), 1005.
(Google Books)

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(Archive.org)

T.S. 1851. Folk Lore of South Northamptonshire, No. 3. Notes and Queries 3(62), 3–4.
(Archive.org)

Verdun, Bibliothèque municipal, MS. 107, Bréviaire de Verdun.
(BVMM)

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Other Notes

• The submission guidelines for Folklore are here. They request that manuscripts be submitted in the Gentium Plus font, which can be downloaded here.
• This page has links to the volumes of Folklore that have entered public domain and are accessible online. Links are also provided to its predecessors, The Folk-Lore Journal and The Folk-Lore Record.
• Wikisource has links to the volumes of Notes and Queries that have entered public domain and are accessible online.
• Although the New York Public Library has a copy of Banks & Binns’ (2002) edition of Gervase’s Otia Imperialia, I was told that it was lost when I tried to access it. Instead I used the copy at the Keller Library, part of the General Theological Seminary.