I’m fascinated by the folklore of hares,” says Andrew Michael Hurley. “There are lots of stories about witches transforming into hares to escape farmers – including one local to me. In a place called Woodplumpton, just outside Preston, there’s a witch called Meg Shelton buried in unconsecrated ground beneath an enormous granite boulder. The story goes that, after she’d first been buried, she climbed out of the plot and was seen wandering around the village, so they buried again head down and put a huge rock on top of the grave.
“There are numerous stories about her destroying livestock and spoiling the milk, then escaping from the farmers by shapeshifting into a hare and darting off across the fields. So I think that story was probably in my mind when…
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