Rabbit rabbit rabbit: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Superstition pertaining to the first day of a month}}

{{About||the song by Chas and Dave|Rabbit (song)}}

'''"Rabbit rabbit rabbit"''' is a [[superstition]] in some English-speaking countries where a person says "[[rabbit]],", "rabbits,rabbit", or "white rabbits" upon waking on the first day of a month to ensure good luck for the rest of it.

==Origins and history==

The origin of the superstition is unknown, though it was recorded in ''[[Notes and Queries]]'' as being said by children in 1909:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Simpson |first1=Jacqueline |last2=Roud |first2=Stephen|author-link2=Steve Roud |title=A Dictionary of English Folklore |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iTcdvd1iRXsC |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=9780192100191 |via=Google Books}} Citing ''[[Notes and Queries]]'' 10s:11 (1909), 208</ref>

{{blockquote|My two daughters are in the habit of saying "Rabbits!" on the first day of each month. The word must be spoken aloud and be the first word said in the month. It brings luck for that month. Other children, I find, use the same formula.}}

In response to this note, another contributor said that his daughter believed that the outcome would be a present and that the word must be spoken up the chimney to be most effective; another pointed out that the word ''rabbit'' was often used in expletives, and suggested that the superstition may be a survival of the ancient belief in swearing as a means of avoiding evil.<ref>{{cite book |title=Notes and Queries |url=https://archive.org/details/s10notesqueries11londuoft |series=10 |volume=11 |year=1909 |publisher=John C. Francis and J. Edward Francis |___location=London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/s10notesqueries11londuoft/page/208 208], 258}} Citing [https://archive.org/details/englishdialectdi05wrig ''The English Dialect Dictionary''] (1905) Vol. 5, p. 2.</ref> People continue to express curiosity about the origins of this superstition<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dendritics.com/scales/one-rabbit.asp |title=Everyone's Rabbitings |website=Dendritics Gemscales Museum |access-date=14 February 2016}}</ref> and draw upon it for inspiration in making calendars<ref>{{cite web |url=http://viewers-like-you.com/rabbit-rabbit |title=Viewers Like You: A Design Concern of Elsner and Shields |date=1 January 2015 |access-date=14 February 2016 |archive-date=9 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201009213714/http://viewers-like-you.com/rabbit-rabbit |url-status=dead }}</ref> suggestive of the [[Labors of the Months]], thus linking the ''rabbit rabbit'' superstition to seasonal fertility.

It appeared in a work of fiction in 1922:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lynd |first=Robert |url=http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015048888161 |title=Solomon in all his glory |date=1922 |publisher=Grant Richards Ltd. |___location=London |pages=49 |hdl=2027/mdp.39015048888161}}</ref>

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In the United States, the tradition appears especially well known in northern [[New England]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/marysfarm/rabbit#_ |title=Saying Rabbit, Rabbit - The Luck of the English |author=Edie Clark |author-link=Edie Clark|work=Yankee |access-date=1 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://wdea.am/the-first-of-the-month-brings-the-luck-of-the-rabbit/ |title=The First of the Month Brings the Luck of the Rabbit |author=Chris Popper |date=30 September 2012 |publisher=WDEA Ellsworth, Maine |access-date=1 February 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://goodmorninggloucester.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/did-you-know-rabbit-rabbit/ |title=Did You Know? (Rabbit, Rabbit) |date=1 December 2011 |work=[[Good Morning Gloucester]] |access-date=1 February 2015}}</ref> although, like all folklore, determining its exact area of distribution is difficult. The superstition may be related to the broader belief in the rabbit or hare being a "lucky" animal, as exhibited in the practice of carrying a [[rabbit's foot]] for luck.<ref> {{cite book |last1=Panati |first1=Charles |title=Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1989 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hI9Weq6q9dEC | access-date = 2 April 2013 |isbn=978-0060964191}}</ref> Rabbits have not always been thought of as lucky, however. In the 19th century, for example, fishermen would not say the word while at sea;<ref>{{cite journal |author=F. T. E. |editor=P. F. S. Amery |title=Fourteenth Report of the Devonshire Committee on Folklore |journal=Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association |year=1896 |volume=28 |page=95}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Hewett |first=Sarah |title=Nummits and Crummits |url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924029890724 |publisher=Thomas Burleigh |___location=London |year=1900 |page=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924029890724/page/n75 58]}}</ref> in South [[Devon]], to see a white rabbit in one's village when a person was very ill was regarded as a sure sign that the person was about to die.<ref>{{cite journal |author=S. G. H. |editor=F. T. Elworthy |title=Eighth Report of the Devonshire Committee on Folklore |journal=Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association |year=1885 |volume=17 |page=124}}</ref>

During the mid-1990s, the American children's [[Cable television|cable]] channel [[Nickelodeon]] helped popularize the superstition in the United States as part of its "Nick Days,", where during commercial breaks, it would show an ad about the significance of the current date, whether it be an actual holiday, a largely uncelebrated unofficial holiday, or a made-up day if nothing else is going on that specific day (the latter would be identified as a "Nickelodeon holiday"). Nickelodeon would promote the last day of each month as "Rabbit Rabbit Day" and remind kids to say it the next day unless the last day of that specific month was an actual holiday, such as [[Halloween]] or [[New Year's Eve]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Rose |first=Penny |url=http://www.thecheekybunny.com/2010/12/rabbit-rabbit-day.html |title=Rabbit Rabbit Day!! |publisher=The Cheeky Bunny |date=1 December 2010 |access-date=16 August 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140116191100/http://www.thecheekybunny.com/2010/12/rabbit-rabbit-day.html |archive-date=16 January 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first1=AJ |last1=Willingham |access-date=1 September 2020 |title=Rabbit rabbit! Why people say this good-luck phrase at the beginning of the month |url=https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/01/us/rabbit-rabbit-first-day-of-the-month-good-luck-trnd/index.html |website=CNN |date=July 2019}}</ref> This practice stopped by the late 1990s.

==In other traditions==

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* "If you say 'Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit' the first thing when you wake up in the morning on the first of each month, you will have good luck all month." Collected by Wayland D. Hand in Pennsylvania before 1964.<ref name=FCB />

* "Say 'Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit' at the first of the month for good luck and money." Collected by Ernest W. Baughman in New Mexico before 1964.<ref name=FCB />

* "...it must be 'White Rabbit' ... but you must also say 'Brown Rabbit' at night and walk downstairs backwardbackwards." This was reported in a small survey that took place in [[Exeter]], Devon, in 1972.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Theo Brown |title=70th report on Folklore |journal=Report & Transactions of the Devonshire Association |year=1972 |volume=105 |page=213}}</ref>

* "Ever since I was 4 years old, I have said 'White Rabbits' at the very moment of waking on every single first day of every single month that has passed." [[Simon Winchester]], 2006.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-130678037.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130125092151/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-130678037.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=25 January 2013 |title='Good morning,' I said, and I was free |last=Winchester |first=Simon|author-link=Simon Winchester |date=2 November 2006 |work=[[International Herald Tribune]]|access-date=3 May 2012 }}</ref>

* "...the more common version 'rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit' should be said upon waking on the first day of each new month to bring good luck." ''Sunday Mirror'', 2007.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-165860929.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181117030259/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-165860929.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=17 November 2018 |title=You Ask & We Answer |date=1 July 2007 |work=Sunday Mirror|access-date=3 May 2012 }}</ref>