Hare

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Hares have played a significant role in shaping Russia's rich cultural heritage. These charismatic creatures have appeared frequently in traditional animal tales, often depicted as cowardly characters. Storytellers employed vivid phrases to describe hares, such as "the hare who runs away," "the little gray fellow," or "the rascally hare" (Sokolov, 436). In folklore, hares consistently lived up to these characterizations; for instance, in the tale "Who is More Cowardly Than the Hare?", a hare on the brink of drowning himself due to his timidity hesitated after observing that a frog was intimidated by him (Haney, 63). In another classic tale, "The Fox, the Hare, and the Cock," a cunning fox residing in an ice house chased away a hapless hare living in a bark house when the ice house melted. The distraught hare eventually found solace after a brave cock intervened, driving out the fox with a scythe (Gerber, 28). While hares were frequently portrayed as cowards, they also demonstrated their quick-witted and cunning nature; as evident in the tale "The Fox and the Hare," the hare was "weak in strength, but agile at running and full of youthful pranks" (Haney, 33). This clever aspect of the hare's personality was not inherently negative; Russian folktale scholar Vladimir Propp noted that hares often exhibited a unique blend of cunning and vulnerability.