Were-Rabbit: English isle’s locals won’t cotton to this tale

PORTLAND, England (CNS) — They may be Oscar winners and loved by film critics across the world, but in one small corner of England no one really cares if cheese-loving Wallace and his dog, Gromit, are wearing the wrong trousers.

Now the dynamic duo’s latest screen epic, "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit," has been quarantined by the residents of the Isle of Portland in Dorset.

For as long as anyone can remember, the "r" word has remained unspoken on the island because rabbits are considered bad luck. The reason is Portland’s stone quarries are literally undermined by the long-eared ones whose constant burrowing causes frequent landslides.

Posters advertising the new Wallace and Gromit movie have been banned except for one that states: "Something Bunny Is Going On."

While the rest of England may regard such superstition as medieval, a spokesman for the isle’s only Catholic church defended locals’ concerns.

"It’s a well-known fact that people here never say the word rabbit. You’d get some angry looks if you did," said the spokesman, who preferred not to be named.

"They prefer to describe those creatures as ‘furry things’ or ‘underground mutton,’ but you must never say ‘rabbit.’ We are pleased the film’s producers have taken our feelings into concern and not put up posters," he said.

"It’s not so much superstition as being sensitive to local views. Those creatures do a lot of damage to the quarries round here, so no one likes them very much, even though they are God’s creatures," he added.

The ban on the ‘r’ word was introduced more than a century ago when a crane operator was killed after the ground gave way below his machine because it had been riddled with rabbit burrows.

Portland Mayor Tim Woodcock said, "It is a local superstition, but, like any superstition, people take it seriously."

Stone from Portland was used to build St. Paul’s Cathedral as well as many other London landmarks.

The Wallace and Gromit movie is not being shown in Portland, but in a nearby town. In the film, Wallace and Gromit run a cruelty-free pest control firm called Anti-Pesto, using a vacuum machine to suck rabbits out of their holes before they can disrupt the citizenry’s annual vegetable growing contest.