t even among existing totem-tribes the
respect for the totem has lessened or disappeared, and among the
results of this he notes instances where, if any one kills his totem,
he apologises to the animal. Under such an interpretation as this, we
may surely classify a "memorandum" made by Bishop White-Kennett about
the hare, the first of the British totems mentioned by Caesar: "When
one keepes a hare alive and feedeth him till he have occasion to eat
him, if he telles before he kills him that he will doe so, the hare
will thereupon be found dead, having killed himself."[408] But respect
for the hare, in accordance with totem ideas, was carried further than
this at Biddenham, where, on the 22nd September, a little procession
of villagers carried a white rabbit [a substitute for hare] decorated
with scarlet ribbons through the village, singing a hymn in honour of
St. Agatha. All the young unmarried women who chanced to meet the
procession extended the first two fingers of the left hand pointing
towards the rabbit, at the same time repeating the following
doggerel:--

Gustin, Gustin, lacks a bier,
Maidens, maidens, bury him here.[409]

This points to a very ancient custom, not yet fully explained, but
which clearly had for its object the reverential burying of a rabbit
or hare. It is characteristic of the totem animal that it serves as an
omen to its clansmen, and we find that the hare is an omen in Britain.
Boudicca is said to have drawn an augury from a hare, taken from her
bosom, and which when released pursued a course that was deemed
fortunate for her attack upon the Roman army;[410] and in modern south
Northamptonshire the running of a hare along the street or mainway of
a village portends fire to some house in the immediate vicinity.[411]
In 1648 Sir Thomas Browne tells us that in his time there were few
above three-score years that were not perplexed when a hare crossed
their path.[412] In Wilts and in Scotland it was unlucky to meet a
hare, but the evil influence did not extend after the next meal had
been taken.[413] Then, too, the prohibition against naming the totem
object is found in north-east Scotland attached to the hare, whose
name may not be pronounced at sea, and Mr. Gregor adds the significant
fact that some animal names and certain family names were never
pronounced by the inhabitants of some of the villages, each village
having an aversion to one or more of the words.[414] A classification