Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb. And
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on our mythical creatures,
Speaker 1: ideas and monsters in time. The cave of Carbonac is
Speaker 1: a loathsome sight, for outside the dark aperture lay scattered
Speaker 1: the bones of fifty or more warriors, and here we
Speaker 1: are told death awaits us, all with nasty, big pointed teeth. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is the famous killer rabbit from the film Monty
Speaker 1: Python and the Holy Grail, and the audience indeed gets
Speaker 1: to watch on as the otherwise normal looking white rabbit
Speaker 1: commences to slaughter medieval nights right and left, until the
Speaker 1: Nights of the Round Table do finally defeat the creature
Speaker 1: with the aid of the legendary holly hand grenade of Antigoch.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderfully absurd scene, and of course, the obvious
Speaker 1: reason for the absurdity is that rabbits of the natural
Speaker 1: world are generally noted for their bashfulness in the wild
Speaker 1: and their docile nature in domesticated settings. This seems to
Speaker 1: be true of all extant rabbits and hairs of the
Speaker 1: family Leopori day and even such prehistoric examples as neurologist Rex,
Speaker 1: which would have been about six times the size of
Speaker 1: a living rabbit, were largely herbivores. Though to be sure,
Speaker 1: rabbits are capable of eating their own young, and there
Speaker 1: are also anecdotal reports of rabbits scavenging meat in the wild.
Speaker 1: So the mere idea of a killer rabbit is of
Speaker 1: course again inherently absurd, whether we're talking about the killer
Speaker 1: rabbit of Carbana or the giant rampaging rabbits of VY
Speaker 1: two's Night of the Lepis. Though I suppose I'm willing
Speaker 1: to give giant rabbits in a largely barren environment the
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt. Still, the idea is inherently silly,
Speaker 1: so silly that the notion of a killer rabbit continues
Speaker 1: to resonate in varying areas of discourse. Just as one
Speaker 1: quick example, and again this one is from the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: in which there is a fair amount of killer rabbit excitement. Obviously,
Speaker 1: uh as Gary Bettel wrote in a nine paper in
Speaker 1: the New Scholasticism, quote to find a carnivorous rabbit would
Speaker 1: indeed so upset our system of knowledge that we might have,
Speaker 1: that we might hesitate to classify the newfound entity as
Speaker 1: a rabbit. But the idea of a killer rabbit is
Speaker 1: not just a comedic obsession of the seventies. No, the
Speaker 1: idea actually goes back hundreds of years. At least. The
Speaker 1: facade of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France features an
Speaker 1: image of a night fleeing from a rabbit, an image
Speaker 1: that reportedly inspired the Python filmmakers. Such a fearsome rabbit
Speaker 1: also pops up in the medieval literary cycle of Reynard
Speaker 1: the Fox, again as an absurdity, an example of extreme cowardens,
Speaker 1: and as pointed out on the British Libraries Excellent Medieval
Speaker 1: Manuscripts blog, the motif of illustrated fearsome rabbits in medieval
Speaker 1: manuscripts dates back to at least the eleven seventies. When
Speaker 1: we see a rabbit threatening a night in the Arnstein Passional,
Speaker 1: such rabbits typically pop up and decorated initials and marginalia,
Speaker 1: so not central illustrations, but illustrated flourishes that often celebrated
Speaker 1: absurd notions of the world turned on its head later
Speaker 1: centuries also gave us more manuscript illustrations of rabbit mischief.
Speaker 1: The smith Field Decreetles of the thirteen forties includes images
Speaker 1: of man size rabbits shooting a hunter with a bow
Speaker 1: and arrow, and then later we see another man sized
Speaker 1: rabbit assisting in the judgment and summary execution of the hunter.
Speaker 1: The final image shows one of the rabbits beheading the
Speaker 1: hunter with a great sword. So clearly this is all
Speaker 1: in good fun and this is just one example, but
Speaker 1: I high recommend you check out that blog post Medieval
Speaker 1: killer Rabbits when Bunnies Strike Back for more examples. Clearly,
Speaker 1: the oxymoronic power of the killer rabbit has stood out
Speaker 1: to us for some time and it will continue to
Speaker 1: resonate with us as the cute threat, the thing that
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly rise up and eat us, bite our head off,
Speaker 1: or sentenced us to death by beheading. Tune in for
Speaker 1: additional episodes of the Monster Fact each week. As always,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
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