TheRabbit of Caerbannog, often referred to inpopular culture as theKiller Rabbit, is a fictional character who first appeared in the 1975comedy filmMonty Python and the Holy Grail by theMonty Python comedy troupe, a parody ofKing Arthur's quest for theHoly Grail.^[1] The character was created by Monty Python membersGraham Chapman andJohn Cleese, who wrote the sole scene in which it appears in the film; it is not based on any particularArthurian lore, although there had been examples of killer rabbits in medieval literature.^[2] It makes a similar appearance in the 2004 musicalSpamalot, based on the film.

Rabbit of Caerbannog
Monty Python character
The Killer Rabbit in battle against the knights ofKing Arthur (left) inHoly Grail, jumping to attackLancelot (right)
First appearance	Monty Python and the Holy Grail ( ̶5̶ 3 April 1975)
Last appearance	Spamalot
Created by	Monty Python andEric Idle
In-universe information
Species	Rabbit

The Killer Rabbit appears in a majorset piece battle towards the end ofHoly Grail, when Arthur and his knights reach the Cave of Caerbannog, having been warned that it is guarded by a ferocious beast. They mock the warning when they discover the beast to look like a common, harmlessrabbit, but are brutally forced into retreat by the innocent-looking creature, who injures many of Arthur's knights and even kills several before being killed in return by Arthur, who uses a holy weapon, the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, to blow up the beast.^[3]

The "Killer Rabbit scene" is largely regarded as having achievediconic status, and is considered one of Monty Python's most famous gags; it has been referenced and parodied many times in popular culture, and was important in establishing the viability ofSpamalot.^[4] Despite its limited screentime, several publications have acknowledged the Rabbit of Caerbannog as one of the best and most famous fictional bunnies in film history.^[5][6]

The Cave of Caerbannog, home of the Legendary Black Beast of Arrrghhh,^[7] is guarded by a monster, whose nature is initially unknown.^[8] Tim the Enchanter (John Cleese) leads King Arthur (Graham Chapman) and his knights to the cave and they find that they must face its guardian beast. Tim paints a verbal picture of a terrible monster that has killed everyone who has tried to enter the cave, and warns them, "...for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth!" As the knights approach the cave, their "horses" become nervous, forcing the knights to dismount. Although the entrance is surrounded by the bones of "full fifty men", Arthur and his knights no longer take Tim seriously when they see a rabbit emerge from the cave. After mocking Tim for frightening them ("You manky Scotsgit!") and ignoring his subsequent warnings ("Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide!"), King Arthur orders SirBors (Terry Gilliam) to chop off the rabbit's head. As Bors draws his sword and confidently approaches it, the rabbit suddenly leaps directly at Bors' neck and bites clean through it in a single motion,decapitating him to the sound of acan opener. Despite that initial shock, the knights attack, but the rabbit also killsGawain andEctor and wounds several other knights. Arthur panics and shouts for the knights to retreat ("Run away! Run away!"), to the sound of Tim's raucous laughter. As the remaining knights regroup, Sir Robin asks if "running away more" would confuse it, and Sir Galahad suggests taunting the rabbit to cause it to make a mistake. Sir Lancelot (John Cleese) asks, "Have we got bows?" ("No", says Arthur), but then Lancelot recalls, "We have the Holy Hand Grenade!"^[9]

The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch is a visual satire in the form of aglobus cruciger of theSovereign's Orb of the United Kingdom, and may refer to the mythicalHoly Spear of Antioch. The Holy Hand Grenade, described as a "sacred relic" is carried by Brother Maynard (Eric Idle). Despite its ornate appearance and long-winded instructions, it functions much the same as any otherhand grenade, with a safety pin. At King Arthur's prompting, instructions for its use are read aloud by a cleric (Michael Palin) from the fictitiousBook of Armaments, Chapter 2, verses 9–21, parodying theKing James Bible and theAthanasian Creed^{[citation needed]}:

...And SaintAttila raised thehand grenade up on high, saying, "O LORD, bless this Thy hand grenade, that with it Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits, in Thy mercy." And the LORD did grin, and the people did feast upon thelambs andsloths andcarp andanchovies andorangutans andbreakfast cereals, andfruit bats and large chu... [At this point, the friar is urged by Brother Maynard to "skip a bit, brother"]... And the LORD spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out! Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."^[10]

Arthur then pulls the pin, holds up the Holy Hand Grenade and counts "One! Two! Five!" Sir Galahad (also Palin) corrects him: "Three, sir!" (Arthur'sinnumeracy is arunning gag in the picture).^[10] Arthur then yells "Three!" and hurls the grenade towards the rabbit. The grenade soars through the air—accompanied by a short bit of angelic chorala cappella—bounces, and blows up the killer rabbit. The hapless knights errant continue on their quest, but the sound of the explosion also attracts the attention of policemen who are investigating the murder of a historian by a mounted knight earlier in the film.

The rabbitscene was shot outside theTomnadashan mine,^[11] a cave four miles (6.4 km) from thePerthshire village ofKillin. For the 25th-anniversary DVD,Michael Palin andTerry Jones returned to be interviewed in front of the cave but they could not remember thelocation.^[12][13]

The rabbit was portrayed in the movie by both a real rabbit and a puppet.^[14]

The name "Caerbannog", though fictitious, does reference real-worldWelsh naming traditions: the elementcaer means 'castle', as in Caerdydd (Cardiff) andCaerphilly, andbannog can have a variety of meanings, the most apposite here being "turreted".

Killer rabbits are a medieval literary tradition, and rabbits sought justice against the hunters in the margins of illuminated manuscripts at least as early as the 1170s.^[15] A killer rabbit appears in an early tale ofRoman de Renart in which a fox takeshubristic pride in defeating a ferocioushare:^[16]

Si li crachai enmi le vis
Et escopi par grant vertu^[17]

(So I spat in the middle of his face
And I insulted him with great ardour)

The idea of the rabbit in the Monty Python movie was inspired by the façade ofNotre Dame de Paris, which depicts the weakness ofcowardice with aknight fleeing from a rabbit.^[18]

The rabbit has been reproduced in the form of merchandise associated with the movie or musical. Such items includecuddly toys,^[19] slippers^[20] andstaplers.^[21] The plush killer rabbit was rated the second-geekiest plush toy of all time by Matt Blum of theGeekDad blog onWired.com, coming second to the plushCthulhu.^[22]

The rabbit was declared the top movie bunny byDavid Cheal inThe Daily Telegraph.^[23] It also ranked high in an Easter 2008 poll to establish Britain's best movie rabbit, coming third toRoger Rabbit and Frank fromDonnie Darko.^[24]

Killer rabbits are sometimes used as a metaphor to say that an ostensibly harmless thing is in fact deadly.^[25] Such hidden but real risks may even arise from similarly cuddly animals.^[26] The humour of the scene comes from this inversion of the usual framework by which safety and danger are judged.^[27] Four years after the release of the movie, the press widely used the termkiller rabbit to describe aswamp rabbit that "attacked" then-U.S. PresidentJimmy Carter as he was fishing on a farm pond.^[28]

• In thesandbox gameMinecraft, an unused "Killer Bunny" can be summoned via an in-gameconsole command. Unlike normal rabbits, it is aggressive towards the player.^[29]
• In the MMORPGOld School RuneScape, there is a hiddenboss called simply 'Rabbit'. Although it has the same combat level as normal rabbits in the area, the boss version has much higher statistics including an incredibly highhitpoint level. In reference tothe film the rabbit drops a grail when defeated.^[30]
• In the RPGFallout 2, two special encounters feature King Arthur's Knights searching for the Holy Hand Grenade and fighting a Vorpal Rat (a stand-in for the rabbit), but bugs prevented them from appearing in the game as released. Per Jorner's comprehensive Fallout 2 Walkthrough^[31] mentions the encounters along with a way to see them in the game. A fan-made patch for the game completely restored the encounters.^[32]
• In the RPGFallout: New Vegas, 3 grenades called "Holy Frag Grenade" can be found in a basement of a church in the eastern part of a radiated town called Camp Searchlight (based on and set in the real-life community ofSearchlight, Nevada). These grenades look like regular frag grenades in the game, except have a larger damage value and a white cross painted on them. On the table where these are found, there is also a wooden box with a text written on it: "Holy hand grenades. Pull pin and count to5 3". Only these 3 exist in the entire game (although more can be obtained using console commands) and the player needs to have the "Wild Wasteland" -trait to see them. Without the trait, there will be 2 mini nukes on the table instead.^[33][34][35]
• In the role-playing gameBlue Archive, the fourth volume of the main story is named "Rabbit of Caerbannog", which the main characters consist of Tsukiyuki Miyako, Sorai Saki, Kasumizawa Miyu, and Kazekura Moe, who are the members of RABBIT Platoon from now-defunct SRT Special Academy.^[36] In the story's second chapter "We Were RABBITS!", episode 20 and 21 are named "Caerbannog's Cave". In the episode 19, Moe and Saki mentioned about a novel, possibly referencing the literary companion of the same film. A thermobaric warhead, named as "A.N.T.I.O.C.H.", is a direct reference toHoly Hand Grenade of Antioch.
• In the RPGWizardry IV: The Return of Werdna, the "HHG(Holy Hand Grenade) of Aunty Ock" needs to be found and used to blow a hole in the last level of the Cosmic Cube to escape the dungeon and complete the game. Ironically the Holy Hand Grenade is itself cursed (meaning it can't be unequipped) and one needs to use Cleansing Oil to uncurse it after pulling the pin so that it can be dropped after which point the game will count down out of order.^[37]
• In the multiplayer action gameChivalry 2, in the map "The Raid on Aberfell" there is a cave that is surrounded by skeletons. Approaching or being near the cave has a random chance of triggering a rabbit that will jump out and instantly kill the player.
• In the MMORPGWizard101, there exists a movement speed boosting mount named "Caerbannog Rabbit" which is shown as a large, solid white hare, with a pink nose, eyes, and ears. It features no gore due to the child-focused appeal of the game.

• In Apple Inc.'s iOS system,Siri may say that the "Rabbit of Caerbannog" is its favourite animal when asked.^[38]
• When aTesla Model 3 is named "the rabbit of Caerbannog", a link to the Monty PythonYouTube channel in theTesla Theatre will appear.^[39]

• Jennell Jaquays authored a short article, "Monster Matrix: Vorpal Bunny," inJudges Guild's periodicalThe Dungeoneer issue #01 (June 1976), which provided statistics for the rabbit of Caerbannog for the original edition ofDungeons & Dragons players. The article was reprinted inThe Dungeoneer – The Adventuresome Compendium of Issues 1–6 in 1979.
• Creatures & Treasures, a 1985 sourcebook forIron Crown Enterprises'Rolemaster tabletop role-playing game, includes a "Killer Rabbit" monster entry. The creature's outlook is given as "Hostile", with a note that it "bounds for the throat, never for another part of the body." Another note in the description instructs the gamemaster to "treat 'exploding' attacks [made against the rabbit] as 'slaying' (H.H.G.O.A.)", a clear reference to theHoly Hand Grenade of Antioch.^[40]
• InDragon magazine issue #156 (April 1990), in the monster collection "(Not Necessarily the) Monstrous Compendium," Sharon Jenkins contributed the "Werelagomorph (Were-hare)" monster for the 2nd edition ofAdvanced Dungeons & Dragons. This version includes the notation, "This creature can be hit by only silver or magical weapons, including Holy Hand Grenades."

• List of fictional rabbits and hares
• Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot
• Killer Bunnies (dance project)
• Night of the Lepus
• Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

•  Monty Python's "Holy Hand Grenade" sparks bomb scare atWikinews