Friday, December 10, 2010

Three Hares

A weirdly wonderful medieval motif, known from western China to western England. People often ask what it means, but I don't know that it necessarily means anything. Some carvers may have copied it because they thought it was a clever design. Whatever meaning it does comes from its association with the more ancient triple spiral, shown below in an example from the neolithic tomb at Newgrange in Ireland.

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