(image via Dalton’s Instagram)

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly why I was so invested in Raising Hare, Chloe Dalton’s account of sheltering a hare in her garden (and house and life). But maybe it started when I read that a newborn hare, known as a leveret, is ‘...born open-eyed into a world of danger.’ And from that point on, it was a survival story, and how could you not want the leveret to win?!

In February 2021, Dalton stumbled upon the leveret, while walking in the English countryside. The leveret had been chased by a dog and fearing for its survival (and knowing nothing about hares), she took it home. She immediately learned that it is almost impossible to rear a wild hare, most of whom perish in captivity from either shock or starvation. At this point, Dalton also knew that she could not return the leveret to where she’d discovered it, so began caring for it as best she could.

I felt embarrassed and worried. I had no intention of taming the hare, only of sheltering it, but it seemed that I had committed a bad error of judgement.

Through trial and error, she learns to feed and care for the leveret with every intention of returning it to the wilderness. Instead, it becomes her constant companion, wandering the fields and woods at night and returning to Dalton’s house by day.

…to name the hare was to proclaim it a pet, and that would, I felt, be to take something away from it.

Though Dalton feared that the hare would be preyed upon (foxes, stoats, feral cats, raptors, and people are the greatest threats), she never tried to restrict it to the house or garden. Each time the hare left, Dalton knew she may never see it again. Yet she also understood that to confine it would be its own kind of death.

I am not going to say anything about the outcome – I read with my heart in my mouth for much of the book – but know that there are many twists and turns in Dalton’s story.

Now out in the fields, the leveret was indistinguishable from all the others. I would never know what happened to it… I felt grief at the end of a magical experience, and loss for days never to be repeated. I felt disquiet, that it might not be accepted by the other hares. Anxiety, that it may wish to return but be unable to find its way back to the house or over the wall… And I felt absurd, for my emotional reaction.

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Dalton weaves information about the lives and nature of hares, and the way they have been viewed historically in art, literature, and folklore, throughout her personal story. She also explores the threat of loss of wilderness and habitat.

More risk came when in the late summer the fields of stubble were ploughed; transformed within minutes to brown wastelands, churned-up battlefields of Somme-like proportions from the perspective of a hare.

The information about hares is very interesting but it’s Dalton’s narrative writing style that made this book so enjoyable.

…it would often produce a strange musical call as it ran away from me after feeding. Louder than a puff, sharper than a sigh, softer than a grunt and more musical than a snort, the sound eluded description. It was like the faintest note the gentlest breath on a harmonica could produce.

Despite having spent thousands of hours asleep in the house, the only traces the hare has left are a shallow, almost imperceptible indentation in the carpet where her warm, long body has worn the surface smooth with its minute daily adjustments; six of her whiskers, scattered over the years; and a few weightless tufts of fur. The damp footprints she leaves on the floor on wet or dewy mornings evaporate within minutes. The emotional impact she has left, by contrast, is immense.

Additionally, her reflections on how the hare enriched her life were thoughtful and beautifully restrained –

She has taught me patience. And as someone who has made their living through words, she has made me consider the dignity and persuasiveness of silence.

I have never resented adapting my life to hers, because I have always known that one day I will lose this opportunity. For every pattern in her behaviour that I can see, I imagine a counterpart that is invisible to me; her life beyond the wall…. I am content with the small part of her life that overlaps with mine.

If you’ve read and enjoyed Raising Hare, it’s worth following Dalton on Insta for lovely, leveret spam 🙂

4/5