Content deleted Content added
Reverted good faith edits by Clc007 (talk): Nothing about the folklore, just a name reference |
m author link Edie Clark |
||
Line 14:
{{blockquote|Trixie Belden awoke slowly, with the sound of a summer rain beating against her window. She half-opened her eyes, stretched her arms above her head, and then, catching sight of a large sign tied to the foot of her bed, yelled out, "Rabbit! Rabbit!" She bounced out of bed and ran out of her room and down the hall. "I've finally done it!" she cried [...] "Well, ever since I was Bobby's age I've been trying to remember to say 'Rabbit! Rabbit!' and make a wish just before going to sleep on the last night of the month. If you say it again in the morning, before you've said another word, your wish comes true." Trixie laughed.}}
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 to 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.
|