What’s up with weird rabbits in medieval manuscripts?

(Pontifical of Guillaume Durand, Avignon, before 1390, via Quirky History)

Here is a bunny riding a hound, using a snail as a falcon. Is that what happens when, without safe drinking water, medieval monks hydrate with ale?

These illustrations are called drolleries or grotesque. This form of art gave us two very different words in French and in English. While grotesque means hideous and creepy, droll means quaintly amusing- via the French drôle- funny, which also shares an…