DevilHidden
The Gallows Hare
He always comes to watch.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Market town
- Legend from
- Local tradition (BBC Wiltshire)
- Tone
- Eerie
Two men on the gallows, and a hare among the crowd that was not a hare.
BBC Wiltshire lists the many shapes the Devil took in the county. At Warminster, it says, he appeared in the form of a hare during the public execution of two men in the town. Nearby at Longbridge Deverill he came on Palm Sunday as a black dog. The page gives no date, no names for the condemned men and no place for the gallows. No other fetched source tells the tale, so this card keeps to that one line: a hare at a hanging.
One sourceOnly one written account of this legend has been found so far.