My dear sister sent me this wonderful objet d'art in this little ceramic Jackalope—which does have a practical purpose too as a cotton-ball dispenser, one plucks cotton-balls out of its tail. H shared with me once that there was a taxidermy specimen on display at the neighbourhood butcher's shop and he was convinced that such fierce hybrids existed—in America.
It like how it has an innocent face, like little Cindy-Lou Who or Bunnicula, and the shiny, noble antlers. This hybrid of a jack-rabbit and an antelope, a creation of American folklore, goes by many regional names in German too—properly known as a
Hasenbock (hare-ram) the Brothers Grimm popularised the Bavarian term
Wolpertinger for this creature that was supposed to lurk in the Alps, the
Dahu in Switzerland, or the Saxon
Rapselbock for this fabled animal. German folklore has a complete bestiary of legendary creatures, including some less fanciful but interesting ones like the
Welthund, a cyclopes dog, or the
Erdhenne, domestic spirits that are the clucking ghosts of chickens. I'd like figurines of those too.
