George Ewart Evans (1909–1988)

This was the first of George Ewart Evans's famous collections of oral history, a compilation of material he gathered from his neighbours in the small East Suffolk village of Blaxhall (near Snape). He recognised that the older generation of villagers around 1950 would be some of the last people who remembered the way agricultural work was done before farms started to be mechanised, and also saw that the advent of motor cars, radio and TV were breaking up the old oral lines of transmission of knowledge from generation to generation. He therefore records as much as he could of the memories of shepherds, horsemen, field-workers, craftsmen and domestic workers, and puts them together with material about traditions, pastimes, smugglers' tales, and other village activities, to give a broad overview of what life was like for villagers in that part of the country in the 18th and 19th centuries, tied together with his own editorial comments and supporting information from elsewhere. I was particularly interested by his emphasis on the dialect words he collected, many of them describing tools very specific to the working of the land in the region.… (mer)

The hare is one of those elusive animals that is rarely seen. These creatures have a completely different way of living to the similar looking rabbit, a creature that they are frequently mistaken for. The book begins with chapters on the natural history of the mountain hare and the common hare full of the details that they have gleaned about the way that they live and rear their young. There are a couple of chapters on the way that they were hunted for food, including some recipes and the way that they were sadly hunted purely for the sport.

However, the majority of the book is filled with fascinating stories and details of the way that the hare has been a part of imagination and our culture, stretching way back to ancient myths and cave art. The authors look at of the folklore associated with the animals, look at the tales behind them supposedly changing into witches, and the stories that connected the hare to the moon, fire and other tricks that it could play.

Evans and Thomson’s book is a rich account of this enigmatic creature. It is not so strong on the science and natural history of the hare, but they have brought together the vast number of myths and legends that the hare has been associated with and made it a fascinating read. Their interviews with people from all walks of life in the country have given us a direct link to a long forgotten way of life and it is a reminder of when seasonal change was just that. This reissue of a classic not only is timely as more people looking to discover further aspects of the countryside. One for every natural history bookshelf.… (mer)