Jackalope Rabbit Breed - Wolpertinger - Skvader - Al-Miraj - Mayan Folktale - Knowledge - Lobelia

Jackalope Rabbit Breed - Wolpertinger - Skvader - Al-Miraj - Mayan Folktale - Knowledge - Lobelia

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The jackalope legends of the American Southwest are stories of a more recent vintage, consisting of purported sightings of rabbits or hares with horns like antelopes. The legend may have been brought to North American by German immigrants, derived from the Raurackl (or horned rabbit) of the German folklore tradition.
http://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2014/12/the-folklore-of-rabbits-hares.html
Jackalope
The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore (a fearsome critter) described as a jackrabbit with antelope horns. The word "jackalope" is a portmanteau of "jackrabbit" and "antelope", although the jackrabbit is not a rabbit, and the pronghorn is not an antelope. Also, many jackalope taxidermy mounts, including the original, are actually made with deer antlers.
Jackrabbits are actually hares rather than rabbits though both are mammals in the order Lagomorpha. Wyoming is home to three species of hares, all in the genus Lepus. These are the black-tailed jackrabbit, the white-tailed jackrabbit, and the snowshoe hare.
The antelope is actually a pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) rather than an antelope, although one of its colloquial names in North America is "antelope". Some of the largest herds of wild pronghorns, which are found only in western North America, are in Wyoming. The adults grow to about 3 feet (1 m) tall, weigh up to 150 pounds (68 kg), and can run at sustained speeds approaching 60 miles per hour (97 km/h).
Tall tales
The jackalope is subject to many outlandish and largely tongue-in-cheek claims embedded in tall tales about its habits. Jackalopes are said to be so dangerous that hunters are advised to wear stovepipes on their legs to keep from being gored.
Jackalope milk is particularly sought after because it is believed to be a powerful aphrodisiac—for which reason the jackalope is also sometimes referred to as the ‘horny rabbit.’ However, it can be incredibly dangerous to milk a jackalope, and any attempt to do so is not advised. A peculiar feature of the milk is that it comes from the animal already homogenized on account of the creature’s powerful leaps. Stores in Douglas sell jackalope milk, but The New York Times questioned its authenticity on grounds that milking a jackalope is known to be fraught with risk. One of the ways to catch a jackalope is to entice it with whiskey, the jackalope's beverage of choice. Once intoxicated, the animal becomes slower and easier to hunt.
The jackalope can imitate the human voice, according to legend. During the days of the Old West, when cowboys gathered by the campfires singing at night, jackalopes could be heard mimicking their voices or singing along, usually as a tenor. When chased, the jackalope will use its vocal abilities to elude capture. For instance, when chased by people, it will call out phrases such as, “There he goes, over there,” in order to throw pursuers off its track.
Reportedly, jackalopes are extremely shy unless approached. If you encounter a jackalope, quickly fall to the ground, and remain calm and still while humming the Roy Rogers song, “Happy Trails to You.”
It is said that jackalopes, the rare Lepus antilocapra, only breed during lightning flashes and that their antlers make the act difficult despite the hare's reputation for fertility.
Whether the jackalope actually exists or is simply a hoax popularized by a Douglas, Wyoming resident in 1939, is still hotly debated today.
For those who believe, the jackalope is said to be an antlered species of rabbit, sometimes rumored to be extinct. One of the rarest animals in the world, it is a cross between a now extinct pygmy-deer and a species of killer-rabbit. However, occasional sightings of this rare creature continue to occur, with small pockets of jackalope populations persisting in the American West. The antlered species of rabbit are brownish in color, weight between three and five pounds, and move with lighting speeds of up to 90 miles per hour.
They are said to be vicious when attacked and use their antlers to fight, thus they are sometimes called the "warrior rabbit.”
History: Origins
Plate XLVII of Animalia Qvadrvpedia et Reptilia (Terra) by Joris Hoefnagel, circa 1575, showing a "horned hare"
Stories or descriptions of animal hybrids have appeared in many cultures worldwide. A 13th-century Persian work depicts a rabbit with a single horn, like a unicorn. In Europe, the horned rabbit appeared in Medieval and Renaissance folklore in Bavaria (the wolpertinger) and elsewhere. Natural history texts such as Historiae Naturalis de Quadrupetibus Libri (The History Book of Natural Quadrangles) by Joannes Jonstonus (John Jonston) in the 17th century and illustrations such as Animalia Qvadrvpedia et Reptilia (Terra): Plate XLVII by Joris Hoefnagel (1522–1600) in the 16th century included the horned hare. These early scientific texts described and illustrated the hybrids as though they were real creatures, but by the end of the 18th century scientists generally rejected the idea of horned hares as a biological species.
The Jackalope was first encountered by John Colter, one of the first white men to enter what would one day be the State of Wyoming.
Thought to be a myth by many, the jackalope is alleged to actually exists in remote areas of Wyoming.
The New York Times attributes the American jackalope's origin to a 1932 hunting outing involving Douglas Herrick (1920–2003) of Douglas, Wyoming. Herrick and his brother had studied taxidermy by mail order as teenagers, and when the brothers returned from a hunting trip for jackrabbits, Herrick tossed a carcass into the taxidermy store, where it came to rest beside a pair of deer antlers. The accidental combination of animal forms sparked Herrick's idea for a jackalope. The first jackalope the brothers put together was sold for $10 to Roy Ball, who displayed it in Douglas' La Bonte Hotel. The mounted head was stolen in 1977.
Mr. Herrick made only about 1,000 or so horned rabbit trophies before going on to other things. His brother kept churning out jackalopes.
Mr. Herrick grew up on a ranch near Douglas and served as a tail gunner on a B-17 during World War II. He worked as a taxidermist until 1954, when he became a welder and pipe fitter for Amoco Refinery until his retirement in 1980.
Once he (and soon his son) began to produce jackalope mounts, it seemed to take only moments for the world to embrace this weird icon of the West. By the time Herrick senior passed away at the age of 82, the two men had fashioned thousands.
The jackalope became a popular local attraction in Douglas, where the Chamber of Commerce issues Jackalope Hunting Licenses to tourists. The tags are good for hunting during official jackalope season, which occurs for only one day: June 31 (a nonexistent date as June has 30 days), from midnight to 2 a.m. The hunter must have an IQ greater than 50 but not over 72. Thousands of "licenses" have been issued. In Herrick's home town of Douglas, there is an 8-foot (2.4 m) statue of a jackalope, and the town hosts an annual Jackalope Days Celebration in early June.
Before discovery of uranium, coal, oil and natural gas doubled the town's population to about 7,500 in the mid-1970s, Douglas specialized in selling jackalope souvenirs. The Herricks fed the increasing demand for the stuffed and mounted trophies. Tens of thousands have been sold.
Proud city fathers later added a 13-foot-tall jackalope cutout on a hillside and placed jackalope images on park benches and firetrucks, among other things.
Building on the Herrick's success, Frank English of Rapid City, South Dakota has made and sold many thousands of jackalopes since retiring from the Air Force in 1981. He is the only supplier of the altered animal heads to Cabela's, a major outdoor-theme retail company. His standard jackalopes and "world-record" jackalopes sell for about $150.
Stuffed and mounted, jackalopes are found in many bars and other places in the United States; stores catering to tourists sell jackalope postcards and other paraphernalia, and commercial entities in America and elsewhere have used the word "jackalope" or a jackalope logo as part of their marketing strategies.
Folklorists see the jackalope as one of a group of fabled creatures common to American culture since Colonial days. These appear in tall tales about hodags, giant turtles, Bigfoot, and many other mysterious beasts and in novels like Moby-Dick. The tales lend themselves to comic hoaxing by entrepreneurs who seek attention for their products, their persons, or their towns.
But here’s the kicker: rabbits with horns are real as rain!
Dr. Richard E. Shope, discoverer of the vaccine for HPVIn a strange twist of fate, around about the time that Herrick was becoming the Frankenstein of the bunny world, Dr. Richard E. Shope was hard at work in his lab. He had seen prints and drawings of horned rabbits going back to the 1500s and wondered if there was anything to them. References to horned rabbits may originate in sightings of rabbits affected by the Shope papilloma virus, named for Richard E. Shope, M.D., who described it in a scientific journal in 1933. Shope initially examined wild cottontail rabbits that had been shot by hunters in Iowa and later examined wild rabbits from Kansas. They had "numerous horn-like protuberances on the skin over various parts of their bodies. The animals were referred to popularly as 'horned' or 'warty' rabbits."
He had a hunch that a virus caused rabbits (and other animals) to sprout crusty protrusions that looked like horns. He even had samples of the “horns,” and his tests showed they were made of keratin, the same stuff that our hair and fingernails – and animal horns -- are made of. Turns out Dr. Shope was right. His experiments proved that the horns appearing on rabbits were created by cells infected by the Shope papilloma virus (you discover it, you get to name it, I guess). And they could appear anywhere on the animal, not just the head. In addition, a version of the virus can produce the same effect in humans, called “cutaneous horn.” So yes, there are horned human beings trotting around!
Shope’s discovery lead to research into the development of the human papilloma virus vaccine, which is based on the rabbit virus.
Legends about horned rabbits also occur in Asia and Africa as well as Europe, and researchers suspect the changes induced by the virus might underlie at least some of those tales.
In Europe actually various species of rabbit who have become unfortunate victims of Shope papilloma virus, which causes cancerous horny growths upon the animal. Cases in humans are almost unknown, although we have one example within the collection.
This rabbit specimen shows one single large horn from the top of the cranium, and several smaller horns protruding from its spine. Analysis of this specimen did show however that the growths did not afflict the animals ability to live a normal life, were not cancerous and there is evidence that the virus would easily be transmitted to its young. According to Merrylin, a colony of rabbits infected with a unique strain of the virus were found in Lucerne, Switzerland, and all animals lived healthy lives despite their horns, which were apparently “strangely uniform.”
Merrylin hypothesised that it would be possible to consider this as a benign inherited mutation caused by the virus, because the growths themselves were not malignant or life threatening, and appeared in all generations.
In Central America, mythological references to a horned rabbit creature can be found in Huichol legends. The Huichol oral tradition has passed down tales of a horned rabbit and of the deer getting horns from the rabbit. The rabbit and deer were paired, though not combined as a hybrid, as day signs in the calendar of the Mesoamerican period of the Aztecs, as twins, brothers, even the sun and moon.
Official recognition
In 2005, the legislature of Wyoming considered a bill to make the jackalope the state's official mythological creature. It passed the House by a 45–12 margin, but the session ended before the Senate could take up the bill, which died. In 2013, following the death of the bill's sponsor, Dave Edwards, the state legislature reintroduced the bill. It again passed the House but died in the rules committee of the Senate. In 2015, three state representatives put forth the jackalope proposal again, this time as House Bill 66, and again it passed the House but died in a Senate committee. One of the co-sponsors, Dan Zwonitzer, said, "I’ll keep bringing it back until it passes."
In 2014, the Wyoming Lottery adopted a jackalope logo for its lottery tickets and marketing materials. Lottery officials chose the fictitious animal, which they named YoLo, over the bucking horse and other state symbols.
In popular culture
The town of Douglas, Wyoming, has declared itself to be the Jackalope capital of America because, according to legend, the first jackalope was spotted there around 1829.
In 1965, an eight foot concrete statue was erected in downtown Douglas and today billboards, and jackalope images can be seen all over Douglas -- on park benches, fire trucks, motel signs, and a 13-foot-tall jackalope cutout on a hillside. The city is also very good about warning visitors of the "vicious” animal’s propensity to attack, so tourists will see a number of posted warning signs throughout the town: "Watch out for the Jackalope."
Jackalope Country, now plans to build yet another giant jackalope. Towering over I-25, the giant fiberglass jackalope will stand 80 feet above the plains.
The student magazine of the Santa Fe University of Art and Design in New Mexico is called The Jackalope. On the other side of the world, The Hop Factory craft beer cafe in Newcastle, Australia, uses a leaping jackalope as its logo. In 1986, James Abdnor, a senator from South Dakota, gave U.S. President Ronald Reagan a stuffed jackalope (rabbit head with antlers) during a presidential campaign stop in Rapid City.
Many books, including a large number written for children, feature the jackalope. A search for "jackalope" in the WorldCat listings of early 2015 produced 225 hits, including 57 for books. Among them is Juan and the Jackalope: A Children's Book in Verse by Rudolfo Anaya. The WorldCat summary of Anaya's book says: "Competing for the hand of the lovely Rosita and her rhubarb pie, Juan rides a Jackalope in a race against Pecos Bill." A short story, "Jackalope Wives" by Ursula Vernon, has been nominated for a 2014 Nebula Award.
Musicians have used the jackalope in various ways. R. Carlos Nakai, a Native American flute player, formerly belonged to a group called Jackalope. In the late 1980s, it performed what Nakai called "synthacousticpunkarachiNavajazz", which combined "improvisation, visual art, storytelling, dance and dramatic theatrical effects." Nakai said he wanted people to dream as they listened to the music. Jakalope is a Canadian alternative pop/rock group formed in 2003 by Dave "Rave" Ogilvie. The band Miike Snow uses the jackalope as its logo. Band member Andrew Wyatt said during an interview in 2012 that the logo was meant to signify experiment and adventure. Of the 225 Worldcat hits resulting from a search for "jackalope", 95 were related to music.
Jackalopes have appeared in movies and on television. A jackalope named "Jack Ching Bada Bing" was a recurring character in a series of sketches on the television show America's Funniest People. The show's host, Dave Coulier, voiced the rascally hybrid. In 2003, Pixar featured a jackalope in the short animation Boundin'. The jackalope gave helpful advice to a lamb who was feeling sad after being shorn.
Jackalopes have appeared in video games. In Red Dead Redemption, the player is able to hunt and skin jackalopes. Redneck Rampage, jackalopes, including one the size of a bus, are enemies. Jackalopes are part of the action in Guild Wars 2.
A low-budget jackalope mockumentary, Stagbunny, aired in Casper and Douglas in 2006. the movie included interviews with the owner of a Douglas sporting goods store who claimed to harbor a live jackalope on his premises and with a paleontologist who explained the natural history of the jackalope and its place in the fossil record.
Beginning in 1997, the Central Hockey League included a team called the Odessa Jackalopes. The team joined the South Division of the North American Hockey League before the 2011–12 season. An Odessa sports writer expressed concern about the team's name, which he found insufficiently intimidating and which sounded like "something you might eat for breakfast."
Jackalope Brewing Company, the first commercial brewery in Tennessee run by women, opened in Nashville in 2011. Its four craft beers are Thunder Ann, Rompo, Bearwalker, and Leghorn.
Scholarly interpretations
Folklorist John A. Gutowski sees in the Douglas jackalope an example of an American tall tale publicized by a local community that seeks wider recognition. Through a combination of hoax and media activity, the town or other community draws attention to itself for social or economic reasons. A common adjunct to this activity involves the creation of an annual festival to perpetuate the town's association with the local legend.
Gutowski finds evidence of what he calls the "protofestival" pattern throughout the United States.
Common to these tales, Gutowski says, is the recurring motif of the quest for the mythical animal, often a monster. The same motif, he notes, appears in American novels such as Moby Dick and Old Man and the Sea and in monster movies such as King Kong and Jaws and in world literature such as Beowulf. The monster motif also appears in tales of contemporary places outside the United States, such as Scotland, with its Loch Ness Monster. What is not global, Gutowski says, is the embrace of local monster tales by American communities that put them to use through "public relations hoaxes, boisterous boosterism, and a carnival atmosphere... ".
He traces the impulse and the methods to the promotional literature of colonial times that depicted North America as an earthly paradise. Much later, in the 19th century, settlers transferred that optimistic vision to the American West, where it culminated in "boosterism". Although other capitalist countries advertise their products, Dorson says, "...the intensity of the American ethos in advertising, huckstering, attention-getting, media-manipulating to sell a product, a personality, a town is beyond compare."
The Jackalope also appears to have a European cousin, in Germany, known as the wolperdinger, and in Sweden, a related species called the skvader. Illustrations of horned hares go back as far as the 16th century in scholarly European works.
Wolpertinger
In the Bavarian Alps, a strange-looking creature with antlers, fangs, wings and a tail roams quietly through the forests - according to folklore, that is. This mythological creature is what Germans call a Wolpertinger - a hybrid species that you've probably never seen before.
Some kids in Bavaria grow up believing in the Wolpertinger and may even search for the rare animals when walking through the woods. Bavarians have done a pretty good job at making the myth believable: tourist shops sometimes sell stuffed animals that look like Wolpertinger and the Deutsches Jagdt- und Fischereimuseum in Munich even has a permanent exhibit on it.
It is not known exactly when or where the myth of the Wolpertinger originated, but the museum in Munich suggests that it may have come from a town called Wolterdingen, where glass makers created shot glasses in the form of animals and called them Wolterdinger. This could in fact be true, since different regions have different names for the creature, ranging from Woipertinger to Woiperdinger to Wulpertinger.
Bavarian folklore tells of the wolpertinger (also called wolperdinger or woiperdinger), a mythological hybrid animal allegedly inhabiting the alpine forests of Bavaria in Germany. These mythological creatures are known by every Bavarian as being mischievous.
Description
Germans don't have a clear definition. A Wolpertinger is basically a creature made up of many different animal parts. For example, it could have a squirrel's body, a rabbit's head, deer antlers and wings. Some might have the head of a fox; others may have the feet of a duck or a pheasant.
Stuffed "wolpertingers", composed of parts of actual stuffed animals, are often displayed in inns or sold to tourists as souvenirs in the animals' "native regions". The Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum in Munich, Germany features a permanent exhibit on the creature.
Images of creatures resembling wolpertingers have been found in woodcuts and engravings dating back to the 17th century. According to folklore, the hybrid animals are shy and difficult to catch. They primarily eat other small animals, herbs and roots. But no matter how hard you try, the chance of finding a Wolpertinger in Germany are about as slim as finding a jackalope in the United States.
The best way to catch a Wolpertinger, according to legend, is to be a beautiful young woman (or be in the company of one), since Wolpertingers have a weakness for female beauty. The woman should go out into a forest at night while the moon is full and find a secluded nook where a Wolpertinger is likely to be. Hopefully, the creature will soon reveal itself. When it does the woman should expose her breasts. This will cause the Wolpertinger to instantly fall into a stupor, allowing it to easily be bagged.
In popular culture
Wolpertingers feature in the MMORPG RuneScape as creatures that can be summoned. It is depicted as a combination of a rabbit and a wolf.
Wolpertingers are the main characters in the novel Rumo by Walter Moers. The novel depicts them as anthropomorphic dogs with small horns.
Wolpertingers and Skvaders appear in "Adventure Path #61: Shards of Sin" for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game as encounters and also as new familiar options for spellcasters.
A wolpertinger features on one of the special animal tiles in the Winter Edition of Carcassonne.
The wolpertinger features as a monster in Here Be Monsters. The game can also be found on Facebook.
Wolpertingers are an obtainable pet in the MMORPG World of Warcraft during the Brewfest event.
Wolpertingers are an obtainable mount in the MMORPG Tibia.
Wolpertinger is the German translation for jackalope in the game Guild Wars 2.
The Wolpertinger is a monster encountered in the jungle in the text-based MMORPG Improbable Island.
Wolpertingers are common background creatures in the Land of a Thousand Fables adventure in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Blood and Wine.
The San Francisco storytelling group Odd Salon uses a Wolpertinger (named Harvey) as their mascot.
Wolpertingers are usually found in the forests of Bavaria. (It is common for Bavarian pubs to display stuffed wolpertingers.) Variant regional spellings of the name include Wolperdinger, Woipertinger, and Volpertinger. They are part of a larger family of horned mammals that exist throughout the Germanic regions of Europe, such as the Austrian Raurackl (which is basically identical to the wolpertinger), the Thuringian Rasselbock (which looks more like the American jackalope), and the north Hessian Dilldapp (kind of hamster-like). They're also related to the Swedish Skvader, as well as being a European cousin of the Jackalope. Also in other cultures, you can find such animals just like the “Jackalope (or Jackrabbit)” in the USA, the “Skvader” in Sweden and the “Dahu” in France.
You can find a stuffed specimen in the Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum (German Hunting and Fishing Museum), located in Neuhauser Str. 2 near Marienplatz (city center) and Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).
So if you’re in Munich make sure to have a look at one of the Wolpertingers. Either in the Hunting and Fishing Museum or in traditional Bars and Pubs.
Skvader
skvader The skvader is a species of winged hare indigenous to Sweden. According to legend, this unusual animal was first discovered by a hunter named Håkan Dahlmark in 1874. Eventually a stuffed specimen of the creature was put on display in the Historical Preservation Society in Sundsvall where it remains to this day.
Visitors report that the animal looks rather like a cross between a hare and a wood grouse cock. A statue of a skvader was also erected in a small park in Sundsvall in 1994. Although the skvader is much beloved in Sweden, the term itself is often used colloquially to mean "a bad compromise."
The skvader [ˈskvɑːdər] is a Swedish fictional creature that was constructed in 1918 by the taxidermist Rudolf Granberg and is permanently displayed at the museum at Norra Berget in Sundsvall. It has the forequarters and hindlegs of a European hare (Lepus europaeus), and the back, wings and tail of a female wood grouse (Tetrao urogallus). It was later jokingly given the Latin name Tetrao lepus pseudo-hybridus rarissimus L.
The name is a combination of two words, and this is the explanation provided by the Svenska Akademiens ordbok (Dictionary of the Swedish Academy): "The prefix skva- from 'skvattra' (quack or chirp), and the suffix -der from 'tjäder' (wood grouse)".
Origins
The skvader originates from a tall tale hunting story told by a man named Håkan Dahlmark during a dinner at a restaurant in Sundsvall in the beginning of the 20th century. To the amusement of the other guests, Dahlmark claimed that he in 1874 had shot such an animal during a hunt north of Sundsvall. On his birthday in 1907, his housekeeper jokingly presented him with a painting of the animal, made by her nephew and shortly before his death in 1912, Dahlmark donated the painting to a local museum. During an exhibition in Örnsköldsvik in 1916 the manager of the museum became acquainted with the taxidermist Rudolf Granberg. He then mentioned the hunting story and the painting and asked Granberg if he could re-construct the animal. In 1918 Granberg had completed the skvader and it has since then been a very popular exhibition item at the museum, which also has the painting on display.
A strikingly similar creature called the "rabbit-bird" was described by Pliny the Elder in Natural History. This creature had the body of a bird with a rabbit's head and was said to have inhabited the Alps.
A road sign on the approach to the museum warns drivers for skvaders on the road.
The skvader has since then often been seen as an unofficial symbol for Sundsvall and when the province Medelpad was to be given a provincial animal (in addition to the provincial flower) in 1987, many locals voted for the skvader. The final choice was a kind of compromise, the mountain hare, which is the front-end of the skvader.
Other uses
The term "skvader" is nowadays used colloquially in Swedish to mean "a bad compromise" or "a combination of contradicting elements".
"Skvader" also became the nickname in the 1950s and 1960s for a combination bus and lorry (truck) which was commonly used on small bus routes in Norrland; the front-end was a bus taking passengers and the back-end was an open loading bay, often used for delivering milk from small farmers to the nearest dairy.
"Skvaderns" is also an herbal liqueur made with herbs from the forest Lunde Skog, the place Skvaderns first were shot at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackalope
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/wy-jackalope.html
http://www.jackalopearts.org/jajackalope.html
https://yeoldecuriosityshop.com/blogs/news/17793604-are-jackalopes-real
https://jackalope.com/the-legend-of-jackalope/
http://www.merrylinmuseum.com/jackalope/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolpertinger
http://hoaxes.org/animals/comments/wolpertinger
http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/__pr/GIC/TWIG__WoW/2014/40-Wolpertinger.html
http://munich-greeter.de/en/2014/10/was-ist-ein-wolpertinger/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skvader
http://hoaxes.org/animals/comments/skvader
Folktale:
Al-mi'raj
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Al-mi'raj (Arabic: المعراج al-mi'raj) is a mythical beast from Arabic poetry said to live on a mysterious island called Jezîrat al-Tennyn within the confines of the Indian Ocean. Its name can be broken up several different ways, though is generally seen truncated as Mi'raj, Mir'aj or just Miraj. Its name is also synonymous with Muhammad's ascent into heaven.
Al-mi'raj is a large, harmless-looking yellow rabbit with a single, 2-foot-long (0.61 m), black, spiraling horn protruding from its forehead, much like that of a unicorn.
Despite its docile appearance, Al-Mir'aj is actually a ferociously territorial predator known to be able to kill animals and people many times their own size with a few stabs of its horn. It also has an immense appetite and can devour other living things several times its size without effort. Al-Mir'aj frightens other animals and they will always flee from its presence due to this.
The people of the island were so terrified of Al-Mi'raj eating them and their livestock that they would turn to witches to ward them away as soon as the rumor of a Miraj met their ears. It was reported that only a true witch would charm the Miraj, rendering it harmless so the people could remove the Miraj from the area.
It is possible this myth originates from observations of the effects of any one of several diseases in rabbits that can create horn-like growths upon the bodies of animals, most commonly Fibromatosis and Papillomatosis.
Papillomatosis is the result of a virus infecting the skin, causing a large, red, swelling growth on the skin of the subject. These red marks may have appeared to be where horns had broken off or were shed. Fibromatosis is a similar virus which infects the skin and causes the flesh of the rabbit to mat with hair, hardening into long, hard horn-like protrusions. Both diseases could account for the appearance of wild, fierce (with pain) rabbits with "horns" as infected specimens have been found, catalogued and are well documented.

Now this is a MAYAN tale about the rabbit
http://www.kstrom.net/isk/maya/rabbit.html

Translated and edited by Fernando Peñalosa and Janet Sawyer
RABBIT AND HIS CAP OF ANTLERS

Once when the rabbit, that is, the mayor, still had his antlers, he met a deer.
The rabbit said to the deer: "Brother, look at the cap [antlers] Our Father gave me."
"Come here, brother," said the deer, "Lend it to me," said the deer to the rabbit. "You're too small, it doesn't fit you, but I'm big.Maybe your cap will fit me, I'm going to try it on my head."

The rabbit handed his cap to the deer and the deer put it on his head:. "Look brother, how nice it looks on me. I'm going to dance so you can see. Then I'm going for a walk and afterwards I'll come back here to you and I'll give you your cap back," said the deer to the rabbit.

The deer went off and didn't come back with the rabbit's cap.

The rabbit was waiting for him, just waiting and crying because he didn't have his cap any more. It occurred to him to get up from where he was crying and go notify his king. He came before the king: "Father!" said the rabbit to the king.

"What have you come to tell me, my son?" the king asked the rabbit.

"My brother went off with the cap you gave me, father. My brother, the deer told me he was just going to try it on, and I gave him the cap you had given me, father."

"'Why did our father give it to you?' the deer asked me. 'Our father should have given it to me, because I'm big. Your cap fits me well,' my brother said. I thought he was my brother. So I gave it to him, but he just went off with it any way. He left, and I just sat waiting for him to come back with my cap. He didn't come back and I got tired of waiting for him so long. That's why I have come to ask you, father, to give me another cap in place of the one my brother took, and also make me taller because my uncle deer said I was too little."

"'That cap doesn't fit you,' he told me, father. That's why I want to grow as big as my uncle deer."

"All right, I'll make your taller, my son. I'll make your body grow. If you do what I say, I'll give you what you ask for," said the king to the rabbit.

"What shall I do for you, father?" asked the rabbit.

"Now I'm telling you that if you want to be as big as your brother the deer, I'm going to grant your wish," said the king to the rabbit. "Now, go and bring me fifteen loads of skins. If you bring them to me I'll make your body grow and I'll give you your cap back."

"All right," said the rabbit, and went off to the fields, to the mountains and to the sea. The rabbit bought himself a guitar. When he came to a plain he sat down to rest. He had been playing music with his guitar for a while when an old snake came up to him.
"What are you doing, brother?" the snake asked brother rabbit.
"I've come to play music for you, uncle," said the rabbit to the snake.
"Oh, your song** is sad, uncle," said the snake to Uncle Rabbit.

"Yes," said the rabbit to the snake.

"May I dance a little?" the snake asked Uncle Rabbit.

The rabbit answered: "Of course you may dance. That's why I came to play a song for you. But I would just like to ask you, uncle, where is your weak spot? Because my marimba stick*** might reach your weak spot. Show it to me, so I can see where it is," said the rabbit to the snake.

"All right, brother," said the snake. "Here's my weak spot, right at the end of my tail."

"All right, brother, now that I've noticed where your weak spot is, you can dance without worrying," Uncle Rabbit told the snake. The rabbit needed to collect skins, but the snake didn't suspect what the rabbit was planning to do to him.

"Dance! Go ahead and dance. Enjoy your dance," said the rabbit to the snake, " because that's why I came to play near your house. Dance, enjoy, and don't be afraid. Here, come close to me."

When he saw him nearby, the rabbit thought: "He's mine now. I know where his weak spot is." The snake danced and came near the rabbit.

"Bring your tail near," said the rabbit to the snake. The snake raised his tail near the rabbit. The rabbit saw that the snake was near him and he killed him. Then he skinned him and went off with his skin.

The rabbit came to a mountain and began to play his guitar once more. Shortly after he had come to the mountain a big old lion approached Uncle Rabbit. He was playing his music when the lion arrived.

"Hey, uncle, why have you come here to play?" the lion asked the rabbit.

"I've just have come to play, brother," the rabbit said. "Do you like music?"

"Yes, I like music." said the lion.

"Do you like to dance?" the rabbit asked the lion.

"Yes, I like to," the lion answered. "If you'll play a song for me, I'll be wanting to dance," said the lion.

"I'm going to play some music for you, because the reason I came to your house was to play music. Dance, enjoy your dance. Don't be afraid, Good, dance, only tell me where your weak spot is. I'd just like to ask you where your weak spot is. Dance, enjoy your dance," said the rabbit to the lion.

"All right, brother, here's my weak spot, right here, on the back of my neck."

"All right brother," said the rabbit. "Dance uncle, dance, dance, dance. Don't be afraid, come closer, come here beside me. I know where your weak spot is, so I won't hit you there. I know where it is. Try to dance a little bent over."

The lion became careless while he was dancing, and the rabbit hit him on the head. The lion died, the rabbit skinned him and took away two more skins, two large skins.

The rabbit walked, and walked and walked. He took his skins to a place on the beach, and played there once more. An alligator heard the rabbit playing a song and came up to him: "Is that you playing, Uncle Rabbit?" the alligator asked.

"Yes, I'm the one who is playing for you," said the rabbit, "for I want you to dance. I thought maybe uncle would like a song. So I came to play a song for you."

"Oh, is it true what you say? I like songs and I would like you to play one for me," said the alligator.
"All right, I'll play you a song, but you have to dance."

"Yes, I'll dance, for I really like to," the alligator told Uncle Rabbit.

"I'd like to ask you where your weak spot is. Just tell me where your weak spot is. Don't worry, just show me where it is. If my marimba stick hits you, you could die," said Uncle Rabbit to the alligator.

"All right, brother, my weak spot is here, right at the end of my tail," said the alligator.

"All right, so dance. Dance with all your might and stretch out your tail." While he was dancing the alligator became careless and the rabbit hit his weak spot. The alligator died and the rabbit skinned him.

The rabbit left the beach and came near a plantation where there was sugar cane, where there were bananas, where there were oranges, where there were sapotes. Near the plantation there was a house with monkeys and coatis, as well as two other households. He came to one of the houses bringing bananas.

"Ah," the monkeys said to him "do you have bananas, uncle?"

"Here, have some." said the rabbit to one of the monkeys.

"All right," said the monkey. The monkey ate the bananas. Then the rabbit said: "Here you're just starving, but I have a plantation nearby where there are a lot of good things to eat. There are bananas, there is sugar cane, there are oranges, there are sapotes," said the rabbit to the monkeys.

"All right, uncle, give us some," said the monkeys to the rabbit.

"There's a lot of food, and it's just going to waste, because there's no one to eat it," said the rabbit to the monkeys. "Tomorrow we'll go to my plantation, all of you and your families, and if there are some others they can come with us too. Aren't there some other friends of ours here?" the rabbit asked the monkeys.

"Oh, if you please, there's another family of our friends that are hungry; they have no food," the monkeys told the rabbit.

"Tomorrow you're all going to go with me," the rabbit said to the monkeys.

The next day all the monkeys and all the coatis set off for the plantation and arrived there. "Eat, brothers, enjoy the food," said the rabbit to all of them.

"All right," they said and they were happy. That day passed.

"Are you all satisfied?" the rabbit asked them.

"Yes, we're fine, brother."

"So let's go. Each one of you can take something along," the rabbit said to them.

"All right, uncle," they said and set off. They came to a plain.

"We're going to rest," the rabbit said to them. They rested on the plain. The monkeys were playing with the coatis and didn't know that the rabbit was plotting against their lives.

The rabbit said to them: "Bring two nets, brothers."

"What are you saying uncle, are we going to play?"

"I want you to make me two nets," the rabbit said to them.

"Why?" they asked.

"I'm going to weigh you, so we can see who weighs the most," said the rabbit.

"All right," they said, and got into the nets. "All you monkeys, get in there, and all you coatis get in over there. Push your snouts out through the net so you'll be able to breathe and won't suffocate."

"All right," the fools said.

The rabbit closed up the nets and went to look for a club, saying: "When I come back you'll get out of the nets." But when the rabbit came back with the club he was ferocious, and struck them on the snout:

"Now uncles, you're going to pay for the bananas you ate." He killed the uncles in the two nets. All those that were in the two nets died, and he skinned them all. He used an armadillo as a pack animal, the armadillo carrying the skins for him. He had collected them as the king had ordered, so that he would increase his height and give him back his cap.

He returned and came before the king with fifteen loads of skins. The king didn't believe the rabbit was going to succeed, and so he didn't realize he was bringing all those skins. When he came before the king with the skins, the rabbit said: "See, father, I have brought the skins."

The king was astonished. "Did you really go and get them?" he asked. "I don't believe you."

"No father, they're here."

"Let's see them," the king said.

"Here they are, father." He took them out of his net one at a time and the king saw him take out the alligator's skin, the lion's skin, the big snake's skin, the monkeys' skins and the coatis' skins.

"Oh," said the king," getting angry, "What do you want in exchange for these skins?"

"I want you to make me taller and give me my cap back."

"Oh," said the king, "what a shameless rabbit you are. In spite of everything you want to be big. You actually killed your own brothers. You actually killed them. You're so small. If you were larger, if I made you bigger, you'd kill all your brothers. Look here, you killed the lion, the alligator, and the snake, even though you're real little.
"Well, now, you're going to have to forgive me, my son, but this is the punishment I've decreed: Bring me your ears so I can stretch them. You shameless thing, you already killed your brothers who are bigger than you. Now never come back here again. You're going once and for all, I'm just going to make your ears grow."

Word of the Week: Knowledge
Plant of the week: Lobelia

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