The Three Hares Motif: Why Three Rabbits Running in a Circle Still Haunt Human Imagination (opens in new tab)

There are symbols that belong to history, and then there are symbols that seem to move underneath history like underground rivers. The three hares motif belongs to the second category. Three hares chase one another in a circle. Each shares an ear with the next so that there are only three ears total, though each animal appears to possess two. The image is mathematically elegant and psychologically strange. It looks less designed than discovered, as though someone stumbled upon it while half-d...