I have many names:
Names of power;
Names of mystery;
Names of splendour;
Names of shame;
Some call me Mr Ra
Others call me Mr Re
You call me Mr Mystery!

(Herman Poole Blount aka Sonny Blouhnt aka Le Son'y Ra aka Sun Ra)

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In the common law a man may be known by whatever name he chooses.

(Brian O'Nolan aka Flan O'Brien aka Myles na gCopaleen)

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My Gong Family name, bestowed upon me by Daevid Allen (aka Dingo Virgin aka Bert Camembert aka Divided Alien aka Psycho de Lick), is Scene Breeding.

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The Names of the Hare

the man that should the hare meet / will never come to have him beat / unless he lay upon the ground / that which he carries in his hand / be it staff or be it bow and bless him with his elbow / and with right good devotion he shall speak this orizon / in honour of the hare / then will he better fare...

a hopper of ditches / a cropper of corn / a wee brown cow / with a pair of leather horns

the hare / the scutter / the big / the bouchart / the scuffler / the robber / the rascal / the racer / the way-beater / the hairless / the go-by-ditch / the grimer / the wimont / the bulger / the steal away / the mumbler / the ill-to-meet / the scutt / the dew creature / the grass biter / the late at home / the treacherous / the friendless one / the wood-cat / the broad gazer / the broom cat / the purblind / the furze cat / the croucher / the west gazer / the wall eyed / the side gazer / likewise the hedge chaser / the stub-deer / the long ear / the straw beast / the lecher / the wild beast / the leaper / the short beast / the lurker / the wind swift / the skulker / the hare shagger / the hedge cowerer / the dew duck / the dew hopper / the sitter / the grass hopper / the fittle foot / the fold sitter / the light foot / the fern sitter / the cabbage deer / the weed cropper / the go by ground / the sit still / the peg tail / the turn to hill / the swift away / to make afraid / the white of womb / the go with lambs / the chump / the jowler / the miser / the peasant / the make unrest / the break word / the snub nose / the shaven / his chief name is villain

when the hare dies the fox mourns: when the hare rises the falcon swoops / hold with the hare and run with the hounds

oh the stag with the leathery horns / the animal that lives in the corn / the animal that all men scorn / but the animal that no one dare name / oh the animal that no one dare name

oh the blood more stirs: to rouse a lion than to start a hare / hold with the hare and run with the hounds / watch the tree and await the hare / aye watch the tree and await the hare / don't loose the falcon til you see the hare / a hare is a hare / when the hare dies the fox mourns: when the hare rises the falcon swoops

aye the stag with the leathery horns / the animal that lives in the corn / the animal that all men scorn / but the animal that no one dare name / aye the animal that no one dare name

a wee brown cow

and when all this you have spoken / then the hare's might is broken / then you can journey forth / east and west / and south and north / whatever way a man will / a man that has any skill / and now good day to you Sir Hare / so well may God let you fair / that you come to me alive / above black furrows / beneath winter skies

The bulk of the above is a Middle English poem consisting of pejorative names to fling at a hare and thereby gain power over it; much of the translation was done for me by Thor Ewing, but several lines remain from the translation at it appears in The Leaping Hare by David Thomson and George Ewart Evans (Faber 1972) which also supplied the various proverbs that make up the rest of the text. The chant (hopper of ditches etc.) is a riddle about the hare from Country Antrim that echoes the sentiments of the Middle English poem. The sequence beginning Oh the blood more stirs... consists of vaious proverbs about the hare from around the world. The last line as it appears in the original poem reads that you come unto me dead, either in onion broth, or just in bread; the alteration is, of course, my own. As from tomorrow morning, you can hear this as part of Jesus at the Zoo.

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Now, stop reading this and go to This Thread Here and follow the link to Rapunzel's setting of Bonny Parker's poem Outlaws - Billy the Kid and Clyde Barrow. It really is rather good.

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Oh - and Ross - we're having a night in tonight; I'll give you a bell tomorrow noonish...