“There was a hare which baffled all the greyhounds that
were slipped at her. They seemed to have no more chance with her than if they coursed the wind. There was, at the time, a noted witch residing near, and her advice was asked about this wonderful hare. She seemed to have little to say about it, however, only she thought they had better let it be, but, above all, they must take care how they slipped a black dog at it. Nevertheless, either from recklessness or from defiance, the party did go out coursing, soon after, with a black dog. The dog was slipped, and they perceived at once that puss was at a disadvantage. She made as soon as possible for a stone wall, and endeavoured to escape through a sheep-hole at the bottom. Just as she reached this hole the dog threw himself upon her and caught her in the haunch, but was unable to hold her. She got through and was seen no more. The sportsmen, either in bravado or from terror of the consequences, went straight to the house of the witch to inform her of what had happened. They found her in bed, hurt, she said, by a fall; but the wound looked very much as if it had been produced by the teeth of a dog, and it was on a part of the woman corresponding to that by which the hare had been seized by the black hound before their eyes.”
Early reference to Witches turning themselves into Hares.
The prevalence of the belief that witches could transform themselves into hares is seen from a remark made by Giraldus Cambrensis in his topography of Ireland. He writes:—
“It has also been a frequent complaint, from old times, as well as in the present, that certain hags in Wales, as well as in Ireland and Scotland, changed themselves into the shape of hares, that, sucking teats under this counterfeit, they might stealthily rob other people’s milk.”
Giraldus Cambrensis, Bohn’s Edition, p. 83.
This remark of the Archdeacon’s gives a respectable antiquity to the metamorphosis of witches, for it was in 1185 that he visited Ireland, and he tells us that what he records had descended from “old times.”
The transformation fables that have descended to us would seem to be fossils of a pagan faith once common to the Celtic and other cognate races. It was not thought that certain harmless animals only could become the temporary abode of human beings. Even a wolf could be human under an animal form. Thus Giraldus Cambrensis records that a priest was addressed in Ireland by a wolf, and induced to administer the consolations of his priestly office to his wife, who, also, under the shape of a she-wolf was apparently at the point of death, and to convince the priest that she was really a human being the he-wolf, her husband, tore off the skin of the she-wolf from the head down to the navel, folding it back, and she immediately presented the form of an old woman to the astonished priest. These people were changed into wolves through the curse of one Natalis, Saint and Abbot, who compelled them every seven years to put off the human form and depart from the dwellings of men as a punishment for their sins. (See Giraldus Cambrensis, Bohn’s Edition, pp. 79-81.)
Ceridwen and Gwion (Gwiawn) Bach’s Transformation.
But a striking instance of rapid transition from one form to another is given in the Mabinogion. The fable of Ceridwen’s cauldron is as follows:—
“Ceridwen was the wife of Tegid Voel. They had a son named Morvran, and a daughter named Creirwy, and she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and they had another son named Avagddu, the ugliest man in the world. Ceridwen, seeing that he should not be received amongst gentlemen because of his ugliness, unless he should be possessed of some excellent knowledge or strength . . . . ordered a cauldron to be boiled of knowledge and inspiration for her son. The cauldron was to be boiled unceasingly for one year and a day until there should be in it three blessed drops of the spirit’s grace.
“These three drops fell on the finger of Gwion Bach of Llanfair Caereinion in Powis, whom she ordered to attend to the cauldron. The drops were so hot that Gwion Bach put his finger to his mouth; no sooner done, than he came to know all things. Now he transformed himself into a hare, and ran away from the wrath of Ceridwen. She also transformed herself into a greyhound, and went after him to the side of a river. Gwion on this jumped into the river and transformed himself into a fish. She also transformed herself into an otter-bitch, and chased him under the water until he was fain to turn himself into a bird of the air; she, as a hawk, followed him, and gave him no rest in the sky. And just as she was about to swoop upon him, and he was in fear of death, he espied a heap of winnowed wheat on the floor of a barn, and he dropped among the wheat and buried himself into one of the grains. Then she transformed herself into a high-crested black hen, and went to the wheat and scratched it with her feet, and found him and swallowed him.”