Tradition: English Mythology
Alternative Names: Rabbit Baker, Medieval Baker Hare
Category: Rabbit
The Myth
The Baker Rabbit is an unusual medieval illustration of a rabbit working as a baker. Dating to the first quarter of the fifteenth century, it appears in an English pontifical manuscript, Lansdowne MS 451, folio 6r. The rabbit stands upright and pushes a tray of baked goods into an oven, behaving like a human baker. Its dark, almost demonic expression gives the otherwise ordinary scene an unsettling quality.
Medieval art frequently depicted rabbits engaging in human activities, sometimes in humorous or disturbing scenes that reversed the natural relationship between humans and animals. Given the rabbit’s occasional association with violence in medieval imagery, the baker’s sinister appearance invites a macabre question: what exactly is he baking? The suggestion that the pies might contain human flesh is a modern, humorous interpretation rather than an established part of the manuscript’s meaning.
Sources
“Killer Rabbits: When Bunnies Strike Back.” Medieval Manuscripts Blog, British Library, June 2021. https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2021/06/killer-rabbits.html