THE MARCH HARE AS A HERO

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 132, 5 June 1937, Page 27

THE MARCH HARE AS A HERO

Prizes were offered recently by the "Manchester Guardian" for a fable of not more than one hundred words with a March Hare as its hero.

Good fables, those of Aesop for example, are simple and short; by the rules of the competition the fables submitted were necessarily short, but some of them were too complicated or too clever, said the judge. Instead of putting a homely truth in a homely form they put a Shavian paradox in an epigrammatic dress. The fact is, it is extraordinarily difficult to produce these simple works of art. The temptation is always to try to make them more subtle than is justified. The charm of fables, like the charm -\C nursery rhymes, is hard to analyse; it is partly their good humour, partly their mixture of common sense and oddness. There is something similar in openings such as: One day a donkey found a Uonskln in a wood, and I had a little nut tree and nothing did It But a golden apple and a silver pear. It is rash to try to imitate styles which have their origins in the recesses of the mind and the remote pasts of nations, but simplicity is the only method that promises any chance ofsuccess. Here is a fairly simple one from Manchester, though it is hard to recall any occasion on which Aesop or La Fontaine punned: A March Hare was scurrying along one day by the side of-a. turnlp-fleld when he bumped into a farmer who was walking home. "Canned 1" shouted the March Hare contemptuously as he hurried on his way. Sonn afterwards he fell into a trap and was Riven by the farmer to his wife, who prepared him for lunch. ".Tugged!" said the farmer as he seated .himself at the table. Moral: He who speaks without a due regard for the feelings of others will one day find

Perhaps, though, stern traditionalism is a little too much to demand or

expect from a modern competition, and certainly many of the competitors did quite well with fables which had a spice of topicality about them. Here is one from Blackburn, which is both amusing and undoubtedly fable;. it bears about the same relation to Aesop as Shakespeare at the Old Vie does to Shakespeare originally produced at the Globe:

A March Hare was being Coursed like anything by Greyhounds when he had a Bout of Characteristic Madness. He sat down in the Fairway and Pulled Faces at his Pursuers, who at once Sheered Off as though they had Another Appointment, and the March Hare was awarded the Waterloo Cup for that year. Moral: "You can get a railway compartment to yourself any day that way," observed the late George Grossmlth.

The winner of the first prize owes her success to the fact that she makes use of the madness of the March Hare in this way, and because she does so in a convincing style. The first prize, therefore, went to: —

"You are making a mad world," said the old Lion, "where all is nehting and there is no food. 1 abdicate." So the animals met to choose another kins; and the Wolf boasted his ferocity, the Bear his strength, the Fox his cunnin- and the Owl his wisdom. Finally the March Hare piped: "These qualities, gentlemen are irrelevant. In a mad world, the maddest must be King. I am your best choice." Struck by his reasoning the animals gave the crown to the March Hare, thus proving that: The logic of fools Is yet more folly.

The second prize goes to h pleasant fable, which is of the familiar type where two natural enemies in the animal world talk together with disastrous results for one of them:

A dog, runnine ahead of his master, surprised a hare crouching on the ground. Realising he was caught the hare said, "Go away. I m "Aren't you afraid?" exclaimed the dog. "What' are you doing " ■ : ■ ■Tm listening for spring. It's just starting, we must dance In worship." He pranced about, inciting the other to join. Faster and faster they capered until the dog, Intoxicated by his own antics, went wild.

•■Splendid!" shouted the March Hare, scampering away, "You're as mad as me now. Keep It up." The farmer, finding his dog quite mad, promptly shot him. Blind enthusiasm Is dangerou».