Beatrix Potter is a much better storyteller when her tales are longer. She delves deeper in to the nature of animals-the darker side of their nature-and her stories are better for it. Again from the fields down below in the mist there came the angry cry of a jay—followed by the sharp yelping bark of a fox! Nobody could call Mr. Tod “nice.” The rabbits could not bear him; they could smell him half a mile off. He was of a wandering habit and he had foxy whiskers; they never knew where he would be next. Great was old Mr. Bouncer’s relief and Flopsy’s joy when Peter and Benjamin arrived in triumph with the young family. The rabbit babies were rather tumbled and very hungry; they were fed and put to bed. They soon recovered. He took up the coil of line from the sill, listened for a moment, and then tied the rope to a tree.

I will bury that nasty person in the hole which he has dug. I will bring my bedding out, and dry it in the sun,” said Mr. Tod. He hurried round the house to get a shovel from the kitchen—“First I will arrange the hole—then I will drag out that person in the blanket. . . .” And Mr. Bouncer laughed and coughed, and shut his eyes because of the cabbage smoke . . . . . . . . . .

And yet, I was amazed to realise how little comment there has been over the years about the many similarities between Potter’s tales and the Africa-originated Brer Rabbit folktales. Indeed, one of the most striking references, cited in Lear’s biography, is found in a letter that Potter herself wrote to her publisher, Harold Warne, on November 18 1911. The letter is about her new Peter Rabbit story The Tale of Mr Tod, and directly refers to her use of the Uncle Remus folktales in this work: The moonbeams twinkled on the carving knife and the pie dish, and made a path of brightness across the dirty floor. I will wash the tablecloth and spread it on the grass in the sun to bleach. And the blanket must be hung up in the wind; and the bed must be thoroughly disinfected, and aired with a warming-pan; and warmed with a hot-water bottle."

Benjamin Bunny’s babies! But how to rescue them? Benjamin and Peter could not open the window nor the strong, heavy door. There was only one way in - through the floor - and that meant digging a tunnel. Does the badger really mean to kidnap those tasty little bunnies? I don’t think he meant to until he saw the opportunity. Remember he’s high on something potent — whatever ‘cabbage leaf’ cigar stands for. Ditto ‘seed cake’. I mean, he goes to the fox’s house, probably thinking it’s his own home. He sleeps and doesn’t move even when a fox comes into his house, probably thinking it an hallucination. He doesn’t give a shit, does he. He’s put the bunnies in the oven but forgot to turn it on. He’s off his face. This original, authorised version has been lovingly recreated electronically for the first time, with reproductions of Potter's unmistakeable artwork optimised for use on colour devices such as the iPad. But there really was not very much comfort in the discovery. They could not open the window; and although the young family was alive—the little rabbits were quite incapable of letting themselves out; they were not old enough to crawl.

Early encounters with Brer Rabbit

He hurried round the house to get a shovel from the kitchen—”First I will arrange the hole—then I will drag out that person in the blanket….” At last Mr. Tod's preparations were complete. The pail was full of water; the rope was tightly strained over the top of the bed, and across the window sill to the tree outside. He lived with his son Benjamin Bunny and his daughter-in-law Flopsy, who had a young family. Old Mr. Bouncer was in charge of the family that afternoon, because Benjamin and Flopsy had gone out.

If it were not impertinent to lecture one's publisher—you are a great deal too much afraid of the public, for whom I have never cared one tuppenny-button. [...] I have always thought the opening paragraph distinctly good, because it gets away from "once upon a time". He has ‘foxey’ whiskers because he is an actual fox, which is an interesting way of telling us that.) Potter never publicly admitted the source of any inspiration for her drawings, plotlines or protagonists. But in his lecture, Hollindale argued that she “misunderstood her own talent and, to the end of her life, was afraid of being caught out as a cheat”. It seems that the only references Potter herself made to her stories being drawn from Harris’s Brer Rabbit tales were in that single journal entry and letter. In his lecture to the Beatrix Potter Society, Hollindale commented on the oddity of this omission: Then those two rabbits lost their heads completely. They did the most foolish thing that they could have done. They rushed into their short new tunnel, and hid themselves at the top end of it, under Mr. Tod’s kitchen floor.The Tale of Mr. Tod by Beatrix Potter (1912) is a child-in-jeopardy crime thriller. See my post on thrillers and also my post on secrets and scams. A new long pipe and a fresh supply of rabbit tobacco was presented to Mr. Bouncer. He was rather upon his dignity; but he accepted.