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Ekito

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Tradition: Japanese Mythology
Alternative Names: 疫兎, Plague Rabbit
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

Ekito are said to have been rabbits afflicted with deadly diseases, associated with a devastating plague in nineteenth-century Japan. According to the account, Emperor Kōkaku received a large ship as a gift from the English. Unbeknownst to him, the vessel carried numerous diseased rabbits that would bring suffering to the country.

Rumours claimed that the English had abandoned the rabbits in Japan, allowing the animals to spread illness among the population. The resulting outbreak was associated with the so-called Korori, a deadly disease that reportedly killed many people within just three days.

The Ekito became feared as dangerous creatures whose arrival brought disease and death. In this account, they represent the terror of mysterious illnesses introduced from abroad and the devastating consequences attributed to animals carrying infection.

Sources

“Ekito.” 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑 (New TYZ Yokai Encyclopedia). https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1081520348.html

Enlightened Rabbit

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Tradition: Japanese Mythology
Alternative Names: Mind-Reading Rabbit, Thought-Reading Hare
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

The Enlightened Rabbit is an elderly rabbit with the uncanny ability to speak fluently and read human thoughts. During winter, it visits an elderly couple every day, correctly guessing what both the man and woman are thinking. Its intelligence and eerie insight make it seem capable of understanding the human mind completely.

Growing confident in its powers, the rabbit eventually boasts that it can predict anything. However, the old man unexpectedly strikes it with a piece of bamboo. Stunned by this sudden action, the rabbit discovers something it had failed to foresee: humans sometimes act without thinking.

The tale presents the rabbit as a clever and extraordinary creature whose apparent wisdom has limits. Despite its ability to read minds and anticipate thoughts, it cannot account for human unpredictability.

Sources

“The Enlightened Rabbit.” 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑 (New TYZ Yokai Encyclopedia). https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1055780188.html

Mochitsuki Usagi

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Tradition: Japanese Mythology
Alternative Names: 餅搗兎, Mochitsuki Rabbit, Rice-Cake-Pounding Rabbit
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

Mochitsuki Usagi, meaning “rice-cake-pounding rabbit,” is a supernatural warrior who appears in the illustrated storybook Kore wa Gozonji no Bakemono ni te Gozasōrō. It serves as a subordinate of Momonguwa, the leader of a monstrous army challenged by the giant yokai Mikoshi Nyūdō. The rabbit wears full samurai armour and carries a wooden mallet used for pounding rice cakes as though it were a weapon.

Despite its martial equipment, the rabbit is distracted by its long ears, worrying constantly about protecting them. During the battle, a monster named Tenaga-hime, fighting for Mikoshi Nyūdō’s army, grabs the rabbit by its ears and makes it cry out in pain. Its concern for its ears proves more troublesome than its duties as a warrior.

The character appears to have been inspired by the familiar image of a rabbit pounding rice cakes on the Moon, a popular interpretation of the patterns visible on the lunar surface. The illustration turns this traditional lunar rabbit into a comical yokai warrior whose most distinctive feature becomes his greatest weakness.

Sources

“Mochi-pounding Rabbit.” 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑 (New TYZ Yokai Encyclopedia). https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1084405576.html

Baker Rabbit

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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

Milkrabbit

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Tradition: Norwegian Mythology
Alternative Names: Milk Hare, Milk Rabbit, Troll Cat, Trollnøste, Trollnøa
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

The Milkrabbit is a supernatural creature associated with witches in Scandinavian folklore. It steals milk from cows and cream from households, carrying the stolen milk back to its mistress. Similar creatures include the troll cat, which may look like an ordinary cat or a ball of yarn, and the milk hare. Witches were believed to create these familiars from materials such as human hair, fingernails, and wood shavings.

The creature secretly sucks milk from cows and spits it into containers near the witch’s home. Some traditions claimed that shooting a troll cat caused milk to spray from its wounds, while harming a cat-shaped familiar could also injure its witch. The familiar was supposed to be buried alongside its mistress, who might otherwise have to leave her grave to retrieve it.

In Norway, stories also tell of people exploiting belief in these creatures to steal milk and blame the theft on a witch’s familiar. A related Icelandic creature is the tilberi, a supernatural milk thief created from a dead man’s rib, stolen wool, and communion wine. Both creatures reflect traditional fears about witches secretly stealing the milk and cream on which rural households depended.

Sources

“Troll Cat.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_cat

White Rabbit of Inaba

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Tradition: Japanese Mythology
Alternative Names: Inaba no Shiro Usagi, 因幡の白兎, Hare of Inaba
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

The White Rabbit of Inaba is a clever white hare who tricks sea creatures into forming a bridge across the sea. After convincing them to line up, the rabbit hops across their backs. Just before reaching land, it boasts that it has deceived them. Enraged, the sea creatures tear off its fur, leaving it wounded and in pain.

The rabbit encounters several gods who cruelly advise it to bathe in seawater and let the wind dry its body, making its suffering even worse. Eventually, it meets Ōnamuji, also known as Ōkuninushi, who kindly tells it to wash in fresh water and cover itself with cattail pollen. The treatment heals its wounds, restoring its fur.

Grateful for this kindness, the rabbit predicts that Ōnamuji will marry the beautiful goddess Yakami-hime, despite his many brothers competing for her hand. The prophecy comes true, and the rabbit becomes associated with healing, divine guidance, and matchmaking.

Sources

“Hare of Inaba.” 新版TYZ 妖怪図鑑 (New TYZ Yokai Encyclopedia). https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1084458606.html

Lepus Cornutus

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Tradition: French Mythology
Alternative Names: Horned Hare, Horned Rabbit, Lepus Cornutus
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

The Lepus cornutus, meaning “horned hare,” was a supposedly real animal described in European writings from the medieval period through the eighteenth century. Although now generally regarded as fictional, it appeared in natural history works alongside genuine animals. Medieval and Renaissance authors sometimes treated horned hares as real creatures, while others used them in humorous or fantastical writing, including François Rabelais in Gargantua and Pantagruel. Conrad Gessner’s Historiae animalium provided an early description of the horned hare as a real animal, claiming that it lived in Saxony.

The creature continued to appear in natural history publications over the following centuries. John Jonston included an illustration in his Historiae naturalis de quadrupetibus libri (1655), and the image was subsequently reused in other works. Gaspar Schott discussed and illustrated the horned hare in Physica curiosa (1662). Gabriel Clauder published an account of a supposed sighting in 1687, while Jacob Theodor Klein included another illustration in Summa dubiorum (1743). These repeated descriptions and images helped sustain the belief that the unusual animal might exist.

By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, naturalists had largely rejected the horned hare as a genuine species. Pierre Joseph Bonnaterre’s Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique (1789) was apparently among the last major scientific works to present it as real, although an 1817 natural history dictionary still considered the possibility that it might be an exceptionally rare animal. Its origins remain uncertain: the reports may have resulted from imaginative invention or fabricated specimens, while another theory suggests that some sightings involved hares affected by Shope papillomavirus, which can produce horn-like growths on the skin.

Sources

“Lepus cornutus.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepus_cornutus

White Hare

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Tradition: Swiss Mythology
Alternative Names: White Hare, White Rabbit of Purgatory
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

An old Swiss legend tells of a farmer who secretly diverted his neighbour’s water supply by digging into its channel. The wrongdoing led to a bitter quarrel and an unjust judgment, leaving the dispute unresolved.

After the farmer’s death, a white hare began appearing at night, reminding people of the injustice he had committed. The apparition continued until the soul of the deceased farmer was redeemed from purgatory.

The tale presents the white hare as a supernatural reminder of wrongdoing that remains unsettled even after death. Its repeated appearances connect the natural world with the fate of the dead, suggesting that injustice must ultimately be acknowledged and atoned for before a troubled soul can find release.

Sources

“Werwolf Born” (Werewolf of Born). SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/schweiz/solothurn/Werwolf_Born.html

Bohemian Rabbit

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Tradition: Czech Mythology
Alternative Names: Holy Deer, Supernatural Hares
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

Legends from the Bohemian Forest in the Czech Republic tell of supernatural animals encountered during sacred times of the Christian calendar. One story takes place shortly after the Swedish period, when a miller and his companion went poaching on Palm Sunday. Following a deer’s tracks into a forest, the miller declared that the animal would have to return. He cut a small heart-shaped piece from the right track and laid it down facing the opposite direction, then the two men hid behind some bushes. After the time it takes to recite two Lord’s Prayers, the stag returned, carrying a shining cross between its antlers. The poachers dared not raise their rifles against the holy animal. Instead, they ran to the church and never hunted deer again.

Another tale concerns Lenz of Kohlheim, who went hunting on a holy night. He was suddenly surrounded by a herd of strange hares. One had crooked horns, another possessed a long tail, and others had enormous, glowing eyes. Thinking the creatures unusual, Lenz shot one and placed it in his hunting bag. As he prepared to return home, the other hares emerged from the bushes and ditches, pursuing him while calling, “Gabriel, where are you?” The captured hare answered from inside the bag, “In there! In there!” The others then called for “Langöhrl” to join them. Terrified, Lenz threw away both the bag and the hare, abandoned his gun, and fled toward the village.

The following day, churchgoers discovered that Lenz’s rifle had been completely bitten apart and eaten away. The tale presents the hares as uncanny beings whose strange appearances and supernatural powers make hunting them dangerous, particularly during a sacred night. Together, the stories warn against hunting at holy times and portray certain animals as manifestations of sacred or otherworldly forces.

Sources

“Heilige Zeit” (Holy Time). SAGEN.at. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/tschechien/watzlik/heiligezeit.html

Lagopus

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Tradition: Greek Mythology, Roman Mythology, Italian Mythology
Alternative Names: Hare-Footed Ptarmigan, Lagopus
Category: Rabbit

The Myth

According to Pliny the Elder, the lagopus, whose name means “hare-foot,” is a bird about the size of a pigeon, entirely white, with feet covered in hair resembling those of a hare. Its flesh is considered delicious, but the bird cannot be tamed or kept outside its native habitat. Pliny also states that it putrefies rapidly after being killed.

Thomas de Cantimpré misinterpreted Pliny’s reference to the bird’s native land, concluding instead that the lagopus does not feed in the open air. From this, he reasoned that it must carry its food into a cave to eat. Albertus Magnus extended this interpretation further, deducing that the bird could not fly well.

Although the original description mentions only hare-like feet, later depictions often give the lagopus a hare’s head as well. It is frequently illustrated standing in front of a cave, reflecting the medieval interpretations of its feeding habits.

Sources

“Lagopus.” A Book of Creatures. https://abookofcreatures.com/?s=Lagopus