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| Photo: My collection Hello Brer Rabbit Illustrated by Rene Cloke ISBN 0 86163 134 X Copyright ©1985 Award Publications Limited Spring House, Spring Place London NW5 3BH Printed in Belgium |
This vintage collection of Brer Rabbit stories retold and illustrated by Rene Cloke was her third collection of Brer Rabbit stories, all published as part of Award's Storytime Library series. While the first two Brer Rabbit collections were published in 1982, this was published in 1985. For a list of the other books in the Storytime Library series (and links to my reviews), see Storytime Library Series.
For more information about the context and background, and for a list of the full range of Brer Rabbit stories written and illustrated by Rene Cloke, along with my reviews of her other Brer Rabbit stories, see Rene Cloke's Brer Rabbit Stories.
This collection published by Award in 1985 is a large hardcover book of approximately 33 x 23 cm with a twilight blue front cover with green writing. The front cover image relates to the third story in the collection, "How Brer Rabbit Lost His Tail", but that image isn't used to illustrate the story. (Brer Fox's depiction on the cover combines the outfit he wears in "Brer Fox Goes Hunting" with his appearance in green in "How Brer Rabbit Lost His Tail.") The back cover is purple, advertising the titles in the Story Time Library series (only four at that point in time), and features an image that comes from the interior illustrations for "The Great Race".
The front and back endpapers are the same as the other Brer Rabbit books in the Storytime Library series, showing images of Brer Rabbit and other characters from the stories, along with English woodland animals like red squirrels, a great tit, and harvest mice. The scenes include Brer Rabbit in the well bucket and in the briar patch, and several images of Brer Tortoise and Brer Fox.
On the other side of the loose front endpaper is a combined bookplate and copyright page, which contains an illustration of Brer Rabbit painting a book where children can write their name under "This book belongs to me". Other animals from later illustrations in this collection are gathered around, including Brer Terrapin, a grey squirrel in a red coat, a red squirrel, and a great tit.
The title page is framed by a large climbing plant that appears to be white bryony. Brer Rabbit, dressed as he appears in "The Great Race", carries a basket of vegetables and fruits (here a round basket, different from the square basket of "How Brer Rabbit Lost His Tail"), accompanied by Brer Terrapin, carrying a basket of lettuce on his shell, and a red squirrel carrying a romaine lettuce. The squirrel (to my confusion on first glance) is dressed in the yellow sweater and black pants that Brer Rabbit wears overpage while painting the bookplate.
There is no contents page, but the collection contains four stories, titled as:
The Great Race
Brer Fox Goes Hunting
How Brer Rabbit Lost His Tail
Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear
The Great Race
I've identified this tale as a retelling of "Mr. Rabbit finds his Match at Last", Chapter XVIII of Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*
In this retelling, Brer Terrapin is annoyed at getting called a "slowcoach" on land by Brer Rabbit and says he is a good swimmer. Brer Rabbit challenges him to a race. "I'll go by land and you can swim in the river."
Brer Terrapin tricks Brer Rabbit – he puts his wife and each of his four children at one of the posts marking the miles, and since "[a]ll the terrapins looked the same", he appears always ahead of Brer Rabbit, and easily wins.
"Brer Rabbit simply couldn't understand what had happened... But he was careful not to laugh at the terrapin next time he met him crawling along."
I'm not sure if Brer Terrapin is meant to be the same character as Brer Rabbit's friend Brer Tortoise. He is depicted differently than Brer Tortoise was depicted in previous Cloke illustrations – his shell is quite different, and he doesn't wear Brer Tortoise's signature red hat.
Brer Rabbit looks taller than usual in these illustrations, first shown standing in a patch of daisies and ragwort looming over Brer Terrapin. He wears red and white shoes, a white shirt, red neck kerchief, grey coat, and patched blue and white chequered pants, held up by suspenders.
The second illustration of the story shows a lovely green field with the river meandering through it. A red squirrel holds one measuring stick, while a hedgehog wearing a yellow kerchief and grey hat holds another, and a vole with a black-spotted white kerchief looks on.
Later illustrations show the Terrapin family (some distinguished by hats), and Brer Rabbit running alongside the river and speeding past some beautiful forget-me-nots, while terrapins are swimming in the river, always just ahead. Brer Terrapin stands on two legs at the final measuring stick, perhaps dancing with delight. Spectators include a grey squirrel in a tailored red coat, a grey mouse in a shapeless yellow cat and hat, a great tit, and a goldfinch.
When I saw the title of this story, I expected to find some kind of version of Aesop's "The Hare and the Tortoise", but this is quite a different tale, and certainly has a different moral message than Aesop's story. In Harris's version, Brer Terrapin starts the matter by claiming that he'd have managed to catch a villain that Brer Rabbit failed to catch, which leads to them debating who is the swiftest. Brer Terrapin suggests the race, with a fifty dollar bill in the pot for the winner. In Harris's framing for the story, the little boy points out that how Brer Terrapin won was cheating, and Uncle Remus makes it clear it's a fact of life to simple beware of. Cloke's version gives a quite different message – not to be too proud and make fun of others.
Brer Fox Goes Hunting
I've identified this tale as a retelling of "Mr. Fox Goes A-Hunting but Mr. Rabbit Bags the Game", Chapter XV of Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*
In this retelling, Brer Rabbit sees Brer Fox returning from a hunting trip "with a heavy bag over his shoulder" and Brer Rabbit wonders if he can trick Brer Fox into giving some of it to him:
"I would like a tasty morsel for my supper."
He runs ahead of Brer Fox, takes off his clothes, and lies down pretending to be dead. Without his clothes on, Brer Fox doesn't recognise him, just seeing "a fine fat rabbit" that it's a pity he can't take with him as he has too much to carry.
When he goes on his way, Brer Rabbit repeats the trick, and finding "[a]nother dead rabbit just waiting to be picked up" is too much temptation for Brer Fox – he leaves his bag of game behind to go back and collect the other rabbit and bring another bag to put them in.
Brer Rabbit immediately steals the hunting bag Brer Fox has left behind.
"Tricked again!" growled Brer Fox when he discovered that the two dead rabbits had vanished as well as his bag and he had to go home without any supper.
The illustrations show Brer Rabbit in a pair of red dungarees spying on Brer Fox through the falling leaves of an autumn tree (possibly a hawthorn). Brer Fox is dressed as an English country gentleman in a plaid blue-grey Norfolk suit (jacket with knickerbockers), matching cap, yellow cravat, and wearing creamy spats over black shoes. He uses his walking stick to prod the first 'dead' rabbit he finds, which lies amongst blue-toned shadowy trees and many red-capped mushrooms.
We see a naked Brer Rabbit sprinting through the trees with his red dungarees and black shoes under his arms so that he can appear to be dead for a second time. Brer Fox slips his cap back to think as he looks down at the rabbit, framed by a thorny tangle of wild rose hips.
Brer Fox trots off into the autumn woods with several red squirrels looking on as Brer Rabbit (clothed once more) runs off with the sack.
I find it amusing in this story (as in the previous one) that once the animals have removed their clothes no-one can distinguish them apart. Also a bit bemusing that a rabbit might enjoy the sort of food a fox would eat (we're told it was "a bagful of birds and animals") although we've certainly seen Brer Rabbit fishing plenty of times.
In Harris's story, Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit were feeling friendly at this time and Brer Fox actually asked Brer Rabbit to accompany him hunting, but Brer Rabbit was too lazy to go, making his subsequent theft of Brer Fox's hunting efforts all the more painful for Brer Fox. Cloke tidies up Brer Rabbit's character a little here (and in the other stories), not exactly bowdlerising but certainly attempting to make his tricks more admirable and less villainous to a modern audience.
How Brer Rabbit Lost his Tail
I've identified this tale as a retelling of "How Mr. Rabbit Lost his Fine Bushy Tail", Chapter XXV of Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*
In Cloke's retelling of this tale, we learn that:
Many years ago, Brer Rabbit had a long bushy tail rather like a squirrel. He was very proud of it and used to shake it as he walked.
One winter morning he sees Brer Fox carrying "a string of fine fish" and asks where and how he caught them. Brer Fox thinks how to play a trick on Brer Rabbit and tells him:
All you have to do...is to drop your tail into the water in the evening and, when you draw it up in the morning, it will be covered with fish.
Brer Rabbit, keen for some fish, packs himself a basket of food and a hot drink and dresses in "his big warm coat and muffler", then sits on a stone in the river and sinks his tail into the water. He comforts himself as he's freezing with the thought of how many fish he must be catching. But when morning comes and he tries to pull it out, his tail snaps off.
And that is why rabbits now have little bob tails.
In Cloke's illustrations, Brer Rabbit has a very long tail, not unlike that of a fox, but rather than being white tipped, it begins white and becomes brown (so that when it snaps off, he's left with a white bob tail). He wears a red woolly hat with a pom pom, blue scarf and patched blue trousers, a yellow sweater, and brown shoes. At night, for his fishing trip, he adds a mustardy-coloured coat with a buckled waist band.
Brer Fox is dressed more grandly in a green hunting coat, with yellow patterned scarf, tan pants and black gumboots. He carries a string of fish and a fishing net. A kingfisher perches on the net and a nuthatch looks on as Brer Fox tricks Brer Rabbit. A bank vole wearing a blue and white chequered neck kerchief stands by some mushrooms, also watching.
The inside of Brer Rabbit's house includes a living tree branch that he uses to hang a lantern, and a shelf with hanging porcelain tea cups. He packs a wicker basket with lettuce, carrot, and apple, and drinks steaming tea from a black and red thermos. (In Harris's story, he just takes a "dram", presumably of whisky!).
The watercolour illustrations are perfect for the chilly, watery setting, in a palette of blues, greens, and greys.
This story fits in with a much larger collection of fables and folktales that explain how animals got their physical traits (a collection sometimes referred to as "why" stories or etiological tales). There are a number of different tales explaining why rabbits have short tails through different means. The rabbit losing his tail through fishing (specifically tricked by the fox) is common to the African American trickster tales and also the tales of the Cherokee Nation and the Sioux and Chickasaw peoples.
One interesting corollary of this story is that Brer Rabbit becomes the father of all rabbits (as Harris says in his version of the story, it looks like they take after their pa).
Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear
I've identified this tale as a retelling of "Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Bear", Chapter XXIII of Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*
In Cloke's retelling of this story, we learn that Brer Rabbit is "very fond of green peas and lettuce" and "had a good feast" of them in Brer Fox's garden every day. Brer Fox notices he has a thief and makes a "cunning trap" with a tree and a slip-knotted rope.
Brer Rabbit is caught on his next visit but before Brer Fox finds him, Brer Bear happens to be passing by and asks what he is doing. Brer Rabbit claims to be "[m]aking a pound a minute!" He says:
"Brer Fox pays me to hang here and frighten the crows off his green peas and lettuce. But I'm very busy at present so, if you would like the job, you can take my place."
Brer Bear happily swaps places with Brer Rabbit, who runs off with more food, "And poor Brer Bear got the punishment which should have been for Brer Rabbit."
"It's not always the biggest people who have the best brains," laughed Brer Rabbit as he enjoyed a meal of green peas and lettuce.
Beautiful pale blue spring skies dominate the background of the illustrations of this story, with the white fence and garden of Brer Fox's home in the foreground. His garden is bright with growing garden peas, and a Eurasian bullfinch looking on as he sets his trap. The final illustration shows Brer Fox's house to be a white-washed cottage with a thatched roof, featuring thick diamond-paned windows with shutters. A gorgeous magenta fuchsia hangs alongside the door.
Brer Bear is down on his luck in this tale – the text doesn't tell us this, but the illustrations show him wearing double-patched red plaid pants along with a yellow shirt, grey waistcoat, blue patterned kerchief (similar to the one Mrs Goose was wearing in Brer Rabbit Stories!) and a pair of black Chelsea boots. Brer Bear leans over the fence alongside som e hedge bindweed.
Brer Fox wears yellow pants held up with a pair of yellow suspenders over a tailored blue shirt. On his feet he wears a blue pair of what we'd probably call today 'scuff slippers' but might have been known as 'house shoes' at the time. He comes running out with a walking stick to beat Brer Bear.
In Harris's story Brer Rabbit was stealing Brer Fox's "goober peas" (peanuts) rather than "green peas and lettuce", and Brer Fox sets up a trap with a hickory sapling and a "loop-knot". Brer Rabbit tells Brer Bear he is making a dollar a minute scaring off crows and asks Brer Bear if he'd like to earn the money since he has a big family of children to take care of. In Cloke's story, Brer Rabbit is slightly less cruel to Brer Bear – Harris's tale has Brer Rabbit call Brer Bear over, and egg Brer Fox on to beat Brer Bear (so the Bear can't use his mouth to explain). We don't see the beating in Cloke's story, and "poor Brer Bear" is to be pitied.
Harris's story also has a different ending – Brer Rabbit knows Brer Bear will be coming after him and hides in a mud-hole where, disguised as Brer Frog, he sends Brer Bear off the wrong way. Then he goes home to his family the same as any other man. Cloke's ending, with Brer Rabbit drawing a moral from the story (that the small can triumph) is wholly new, though well in keeping with the overarching message of the Brer Rabbit stories.
Conclusion
In this third collection of Rene Cloke's Brer Rabbit stories, Brer Rabbit doesn't come off quite so well as in the former two – other animals get the better of Brer Rabbit twice (Brer Terrapin and Brer Fox). As I noted above, Cloke softens Brer Rabbit's motives for a modern audience – a hundred years has perhaps made a difference in how much a little rabbit can get away with without appearing to be the villain, rather than appearing to be dealing tricks to those deserving of them.
Footnote
*Works of Joel Chandler Harris – Project Gutenberg
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