Brave Jill and Fierce Jack

His first memory was of hiding in the heavily petaled whin when he was no more than a bit of fur, waiting for night to fall when his mum would return to nurse him. She had carefully separated and hid each of her leverets to prevent a fox from easily killing all of them in one go.

Heather and whin grow in abundance in the heathlands where the little hare was born, the earthy greens and browns of the landscape punctuated with clumps of yellow and lavender, the dense and twisting undergrowth providing cover for the hares but not the protection that their cousin rabbits enjoy in their deep warrens.

Like the fate of many hares in the heathlands, his mum died before he was weaned. But both he and his siblings beat the odds, surviving because they were adopted by Brave Jill with the wastrel womb.

Kind and sociable due to her inability to bear young, she raised many orphaned leverets in the seasons when she could still nurse and fight to protect them. In the heathlands, the hares have many enemies.

Unlike other mothers who would drive away their young once the next brood began to stir in their wombs, she treated them with affection and allowed Little Jack to stay with her even after he was weaned.

She taught him where to find the best forage, how to stay downwind from a fox and most importantly how to do the one thing that no predator ever expected - to attack!

Hares learn early that fear, wiles and speed are necessary to stay alive in the heathlands for more than a season or two.

But Brave Jill had tasted the mania that lives in a predator’s blood.

She learned how to turn a hare’s instinctual ability to avoid a predator into an offensive weapon by positioning herself upwind and attacking from the rear and flank of her enemy.

The benefit of surprise and her superior speed would knock the fox sprawling and give her an opening to go for its throat. A single experience with Brave Jill often led the injured fox to move its hunting ground to a more prosperous locale.

Every adult hare has sharp teeth and a bite hard enough to take off a man's finger. But Brave Jill was the only hare on the heathland that ever fought a fox and lived.

Little Jack knew this to be true because she drove off a vixen to save him after its mate carried away his mother.

Trembling in the whin, he had looked up at Brave Jill basking in the light of the great white hare that night, and felt his fear slip mysteriously away.

Sounds strange, doesn't it? Hares are born to run not fight. Only in the terrifying madness that infects a mother protecting her young would a Jill attack a fox, something no Jack would ever do.

Not when he can run, dodge and leap the way a full-grown hare can. Have you ever experienced the joy of seeing one outrun a predator on the heath?

The hare will clear three meters with every lithe bound, pretty as you please, often changing direction in mid-air. The heavier fox cannot turn quickly enough and will soon quit in frustration when its prey leaps further and further away.

Imagine the power the hare’s speed might bring to an attack and you will have a germ of an idea of what Brave Jill taught Little Jack. Working together they soon transitioned from dangerous to lethal.

But in the beginning, before he achieved his fighting weight, when a predator hunted in the heath, he would stamp to attract its attention and then lead it a merry chase into an ambush where Brave Jill waited.

Using this tactic, they killed their first stoat. But it was not until he was a full-grown Jack that they killed their first fox together by attacking it in tandem and he too learned the mania in the taste of a predator's blood.

But after his second season when Little Jack was big and fierce enough to win a mate, Brave Jill finally forced him to leave, driving him away each time he tried to return, his duty now to all the hares living in the heathlands to mate and raise future fighters.

Hares do not have a word for love, since they do not mate for life. So, Jack could not understand the pain he felt when she drove him away. He only understood that leaving her was impossible.

If not for her wastrel womb they would have mated and unlike every other Jack who had ever lived upon the heath, he would have stayed to protect their young.

He kept his distance from her but always stayed close enough to return if she needed him.

One night while he basked in the light of the great white hare, he caught the acrid scent of a Vixen hunting downwind and crouched low, his body tensing for the spring and the adrenaline-fueled rush of the chase.

But he soon heard the faint pounding of a hare moving at speed across the heath toward rather than away from the scent. It could only be Brave Jill!

His body now powerfully coiled for action, when a second vixen rushed past him he sprang after her knowing instinctually that the two foxes were working in tandem to kill Jill.

Leaping and running like never before, he cut a wide arc to flank and intercept the second fox before she could reach her.

I wish you could have seen it with me. One moment Brave Jill collided with the first fox, the two of them skidding across the heath, her teeth locked on the vixen’s throat.

In the next, Little Jack hit the second fox with such fury that he and the vixen tumbled, bodies and limbs flailing in the thorny whin, both of them pierced and bleeding.

But he never let go, the vixen trying to get a grip on his tensed shoulder, her teeth snapping in desperation.

Driving his head beneath her jaw, he finally reached the vein with his long, deadly teeth, the blood spraying from her throat briefly blinding him. The vixen trembled and shook for a few moments before lying still, life slipping away with her last rattling breath.

Then Little Jack sat up and shook the blood from his eyes and sneezed twice while looking dazed rather than proud of what he had done. Brave Jill walked stiffly to her protégé and nuzzled him and then began to lick the gore from his face.

Their battle attracted many agitated Jill’s and curious Jacks to the scene, the females in heat jostling one another and circling Little Jack and Brave Jill who still stood together over his kill.

The other Jacks strutted and preened, each hoping to mate. But the Jills raised up on their haunches and pummeled any male who approached them, each female set only on mating with the fierce young Jack splattered in their enemy’s blood.

When even the alpha Jack was rebuked by each Jill in turn, he finally bellowed "Why?"

"This Jack fights," Brave Jill answered with a mocking laugh.

Fierce Jack, uninterested in his sudden sex appeal, ignored the surrounding hares and bent over his kill to feed.

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Explanatory notes:

(1) Whin is Gorse - A yellow flowered evergreen shrub that is common in Great Britain and Eurasia.

(2) Leverets are baby hares. Rabbits have bunnies, but leverets are way cooler. They can run within a few hours of birth. Bunnies are born blind useless little buggers.

(3) Warrens are the spacious, communal burrows that rabbits dig for protection.

(4) Many - more than one. Hares only use two numbers: one and many.

(5) Hares don't name their young. Females are Jills and males are Jack. It sounds confusing, but hares are solitary animals, not communal like rabbits, so it's no big deal.

(6) Wastrel - barren, useless, cannot bear young.

(7) Vixen - a female fox.

(8) A stoat is an ermine. A member of the Mustela family (Mustela erminea).

Thanks for reading!