A large grey fur ball bustles suddenly by the path and then stares up with soft black eyes. It shows more curiosity than fear, suggesting this is the first time in its short life that it has met my kind. Certainly it is my first baby rabbit of the spring.

You might think that the widespread emergence of these adorable creatures at this season lies behind the tradition of the Easter bunny but, in fact, the two are completely unrelated. The association between the passion of Christ and the festive lagomorph actually originates with the hare.

Yet this little rabbit is still steeped in history. The sandy bank in which it was probably born, as well as the adjacent field and the row of houses along its southern boundary, are all known as “The Warren”. Warren View Cottage, on the opposite side of the street, is at least 300 years old. All the names hint at the long tradition of rabbit cultivation in our village.

The cony, as it was originally called, and pronounced like honey, from the Latin cuniculus, was probably introduced by the Plantagenets, with the first mention of homegrown stock in 1235. Henry III was heaping about 450 conies onto his groaning Christmas table by 1251, yet this is modest in comparison with the glutton’s party thrown at Archbishop Neville’s York enthronement (1465) where 4,000 rabbits were consumed.

Puff-tails with puffy eyes, legacy of the human will Read more

A single major warren, such as the one at Thetford in south Norfolk, could yield 20,000-30,000 a year and reflected the importance of both the sweet, rather bird-like, pink flesh and the soft fur. There was a fur-processing factory in Breckland until the 1970s but things quickly changed with the arrival of the myxoma virus. This South-American-sourced plague was as devastating to our appetites for rabbit products as it was to the animals themselves. By 1959 British numbers had fallen by an estimated 99%, to just 1m. Resistance to various viruses means that rabbit numbers are now more stable, but the fur bundle at my feet has about a one in three chance of succumbing to the next outbreak.

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