Dickon Hares was the dungeoneer of Team 6 of Series 4. Hailing from Torquay, he has arguably one of the most memorable names of any Knightmare contestant.
According to Elric, who joined the Knightmare.com Forum in December 2004, Dickon was lucky to have been on Knightmare at all. He was the replacement for the team's original dungeoneer, the brother of advisor Praveen, who was taken ill before filming. This, claims Elric, explains the size difference between Dickon and his advisors, since Praveen's brother was a similar age to the other team members, whereas Dickon was younger. (During the quest, Downers made Dickon smaller still.)

The team still included siblings, as Dickon's brother Dominic Hares was one of the advisors. This led to the monk Brother Mace asking Dickon about his "Dominican" brother. Mace also identified Dickon as a name mentioned by William Shakespeare.
Dickon was the only dungeoneer to encounter all three Weeping Doors during his quest, to vanquish Malice and to carry a clue object between levels: Hordriss gave him a potion to pass on to Brother Mace as "Etruscan brandy". Drinking this turned the monk into a large lizard: an incident that Mace recalled during Series 5. Dickon also met Mellisandre (in the never-before-seen Crazed Heifer), Oakley, Fatilla, goblins, Motley in the pillory ("My mate Dickon, he ain't no chicken!"), an ogre, Gundrada, Ariadne and Merlin, when he achieved the distinction of being Series 4's only winning dungeoneer, retrieving the Crown.
Dickon is also the subject of a memorable anecdote. David Learner, who played Pickle, revealed it during an interview with Debbie Glover in 2002: '[Dickon's team] had to pick up a goblin horn, otherwise they could not go forward. And I remember Dickon getting the horn and me coming out with the memorable line "Dickon's got the horn Master!".' The line never made it into that episode's final edit.

In January 2004, Illusion reported the following on the Knightmare.com Forum: '[Dickon] is now a Biology teacher. I had an e-mail from one of his pupils who by chance was watching Knightmare on Challenge recently and thought he looked familiar. When he approached Mr Hares at the start of term and asked him, he said "Wahey! I am the champ!"'
Later in 2004, forum member Pipmuk brought news that Dickon was working at Pipmuk's school at that time. His response to being asked by Pipmuk's acquaintances whether he appeared on Knightmare was reported as: "I wasn't just on Knightmare... I won it!! Come on!!"

In 2014, clips of Dickon's quest were uploaded to the ITV Children's Classics channel on YouTube. These include:

Before the quest
Level 1 encounter with Hordriss
Outside the Crazed Heifer (N.B. a technical error has removed the haunting from this and other clips)
Inside the Crazed Heifer
Finding the Downers
Using a Downer
Finding the Uppers
Releasing Motley from the pillory
Motley and Gundrada encounter
Meeting Brother Mace
Ariadne's Lair
Level 3 encounter with Hordriss
First encounter with Malice
Bridge encounter with Malice
Final encounter with Malice
Finding the Crown

In March 2021, Dickon's entire quest became available to watch via BritBox.

Josh Widdicombe's autobiography Watching Neighbours Twice a Day...: How '90s TV (Almost) Prepared Me For Life, published in September 2021, referred to 'Dicken Hairs' and his Knightmare win as a rumour Josh had heard.

In response to this, Andy Born tweeted Josh, saying: 'can confirm Dicken Hares [sic] went to St Mary's primary in Buckfast, and won Knightmare. They got to go on Big Breakfast and Motormouth, it was a big deal.' While Motormouth was running on ITV at the time of Series 4, no footage showing Dickon or his teammates has been identified. Likewise for The Big Breakfast which started in 1992, some time after Dickon's quest was shown.

[Earlier versions: 2014-10-18 14:33:42, 2009-11-21 19:45:55, 2007-03-07 16:32:07]

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A character in the introductory story to Mindscape's 1991 Knightmare computer game. Dickon joins three older friends (James, Ralph and Sean) on an expedition to find Treguard's castle, giving up a paid-for place at Scout camp on the Isle of Wight to do so. Somewhat petulant, he becomes nervous when the boys do actually find their way to the Dungeon Master's antechamber via the elf portal of Dungate.

It seems likely that Dickon is inspired by his namesake from the series itself (see other definition). His physical appearance ('watery blue eyes peering with childish innocence from a pallid freckly complexion') is not unlike that of Dickon Hares, who likewise was the youngest of his team; and he asks Treguard about the Crown, the very object for which Dickon Hares successfully quested. These are surely more than coincidences.

[Previous version: 2006-03-12 01:06:34]

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