Rabbits in Stories vs Rabbits in Real Life

So when you think of rabbits, do you think of cunning, vicious little fiends?

Probably not.

In most children's stories rabbits are usually depicted as whiney, weak and often very annoying characters. Mr and Mrs Rabbit in Animals of Farthing Wood and any of the rabbits that occassionally appear in Brian Jacques' Redwall series are proof enough of this. Although Peter Rabbit did manage to escape Mr McGregor twice. So the rabbits of Beatrix Potter's world weren't all that useless.

So when Cutlet the rabbit was introduced to the house, it was a bit of a surprise to find that all of the cats were spooked by such a clearly dangerous animal ... granted, she is almost as big as Shego. But there really wasn't any reason for them to fear her.

Well, she has certainly made sure that the cats know who's boss since then. She seems to get huge enjoyment chasing them around the lounge room, and has actually kicked at least one of the cats out of the basket just for laughs.

Watching Cutlet at work harrassing the cats has actually reminded me of the old Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox mum and dad used to tell me. In those stories, Br'er Rabbit wasn't annoying or whiney or weak. He gave as good as he got ... although I'm not sure he ever got back at Br'er Fox for tricking him into losing his beautiful long tail.

I'm thinking that the Celts were onto something when they started telling the Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox stories. Br'er Rabbit certainly seems to resemble Cutlet far more closely than Mr and Mrs Rabbit or any of Brian Jacques' rabbits. I'm not sure if Cutlet is like Peter Rabbit though; she hasn't disobeyed us and run wild in some crazy person's vege garden yet. But only time will tell if she'll do this, I guess.