Danger ahead! Can you see the rabbit being grabbed by a griffin? And the bottom of one as it scurries back into the safety of its burrow? [click image for larger view]   Some people think that this is the rabbit that inspired the opening of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Carroll's father was a clergyman connected with Ripon Cathedral and almost certainly he would have shown this carving to his young son. (There's a griffin in Alice in Wonderland too, though Carroll spells its name 'Gryphon'). The rabbit in Alice has a few extra details of course. He is a Victorian rabbit and so wears a waistcoat, with a watch in the pocket. He scuttles through the novel, always pulling out his watch, ever anxious, never stopping: "Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! Wo'n't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!" When the Ripon misericords were made, there were a few primitive clocks, but most people lived their lives using natural markers: daylight and darkness, or the changing seasons. Autumn meant lots of work harvesting, but lots of food too. Winter was a time to dig ditches, mend tools and, on occasion, feast. Spring meant more hard work, but food might be growing scarce. Summer meant light and warmth, though it might also be the hungriest time of the year. Woven into this pattern was the calendar of the church - times of celebration or repentance. There were many holy days - the root of our word 'holiday'. Lent fell at the time of year when the food supply often had to be controlled carefully (although the exact date of Lent was governed by the cycles of the moon). All this was managed without the use of clocks. Clocks help us to be on time, but they also remind us when we are late. So many modern lives seem to be driven solely by the pressures of clock time, without any awareness of the seasons of the earth or the church. We can end up a bit like Lewis Carroll's ever-anxious White Rabbit. Whatever people thought about it in the Middle Ages, we might see the griffin, with its terrible claws, as a terrible modern inner-demon, chasing us on and on with no time to stop and think!