of Norwich Edward

“ A little greyhound is very hardy when (if) he takes a fox by himself, for men have seen great greyhounds which might well take a hart and a wild boar and a wolf and would let the fox go. And when the vixen is assaute, and goeth in her love to seek the dog fox she crieth with a hoarse voice as a mad hound doth, and also when she calleth her whelps when she misses any of them, she calleth in the same way. The fox does not complain (cry) when men slay him, but he defendeth himself with all his power while he is alive. He liveth on all vermin and all carrion and on foul worms. ”

“ Thou, Sir, whatever you be, great or little, that would teach a man to be a good hunter, first he must be a child past seven or eight years of age or little older, and if any man would say that I take a child in too tender age for to put him to work, I answer that all nature shortens and descends. ”

“ After that I have spoken of the nature of beasts of venery and of chase which men should hunt, now I will tell you of the nature of the hounds which hunt and take them. And first of their noble conditions that be so great and marvellous in some hounds that there is no man can believe it, unless he were a good skilful hunter, and well knowing, and that he haunted them long, for a hound is a most reasonable beast, and best knowing of any beast that ever God made. ”

“ The icy polar seas, the steaming equatorial forests, the waterless tropical deserts, the vast plains of wind-rippled grass, the wooded northern wilderness, the stupendous mountain masses of the Andes and the Himalayas—in short, all regions, however frowning and desolate, were penetrated by the restless English in their eager quest for big game. ”

“ The great lords, with whom love of hunting had become a disease, not merely made of game-preserving a grievous burden for the people, but also followed the chase in ways which made scant demands upon the hardier qualities either of mind or of body. ”

“ A running hound is a kind of hound there be few men that have not seen some of them. Nevertheless I shall devise how a running hound shall be held for good and fair, and also shall I devise of their manners. Of all hues of running hounds, there are some which be good, and some which be bad or evil as of greyhounds. But the best hue of running hounds and most common for to be good, is called brown tan. Also the goodness of running hounds, and of all other kinds of good hounds, cometh of true courage and of the good nature of their good father and of their good mother. ”

“ And also he should again seek the rights, for a hart flieth and ruseth. Commonly a bold hound hunteth with the wind when he seeth his time. He dreads his master and understands him and does as he bids him. A bold hound should not leave the hart neither for rain, nor for heat, nor for cold, nor for any evil weather, but at this time there be few such, and also should he hunt the hart well by himself without help of man, as if the man were always with him. But alas! I know not now any such hounds. Hounds there are which be bold and brave ”

“ No more competent writer could have been selected to introduce to his countrymen a work that illustrates the spirit which animated our common forbears five centuries ago, their characteristic devotion to the chase, no less than their intimate acquaintance with the habits and "nature" of the wild game they pursued: all attributes worthy of some study by the reading sportsmen of the twentieth century, who, as I show, have hitherto neglected the study of English Venery. ”

“ A good greyhound should go so fast that if he be well slipped he should overtake any beast, and there where he overtakes it he should seize it where he can get at it the soonest, nevertheless he shall last longer if he bite in front or by the side.163 He should be courteous and not too fierce, following well his master and doing whatever he command him. He shall be good and kindly and clean, glad and joyful and playful, well willing and goodly to all manner of folks save to the wild beasts to whom he should be fierce, spiteful and eager. ”

“ Some take an old cock and pull all the feathers from above his vent and hangeth him by the legs and by the wings, and setteth the cock's vent upon the hole of the biting, and stroketh along the cock by the neck and by the shoulders because that the cock's vent should suck all the venom of the biting. And so men do long upon each of the wounds, and if the wounds be too little they must be made wider with a barber's lancet. And many men say, but thereof I make no affirmation, that if the hound were mad, that the cock shall swell and die, and he that was bitten by the hound shall be healed. ”

“ These be good hounds of our land, but not so good as the bold hounds aforesaid. They be well wise, for they know well that they should not hunt the change, and they are not so wise as to dissever the hart from the change, for they abide still and restive. ”

“ Even in the United States the enactment and observance of such laws has brought about a marked increase in the game of certain localities, as, for instance, New England, during the past thirty years; while in the Yellowstone Park the elk, deer, antelope, and mountain sheep, and, strangest of all, the bear, are not merely preserved in all their wild freedom, but, by living unmolested, have grown to show a confidence in man and a tameness in his presence such as elsewhere can be found only in regions where he has been hitherto unknown. ”

“ And men have seen a great hart and an old one, the which had hollow traces, and that cannot matter so that he hath the other signs before said. For a hollow trace and sharp cleeves betoken no other thing than that the country the hart hath haunted is a soft country or hard, and where there be but few stones, or that he has been hunted but little. ”

“ Yet I will prove to you how hunters live longer than any other men, for as Hippocras the doctor telleth: "full repletion of meat slayeth more men than any sword or knife." They eat and drink less than any other men of this world, for in the morning at the assembly they eat a little, and if they eat well at supper, they will by the morning have corrected their nature, for then they have eaten but little, and their nature will not be prevented from doing her digestion, whereby no wicked humours or superfluities may be engendered. ”

“ HOW AN HUNTER SHOULD SEEK AND FIND THE HARE WITH RUNNING HOUNDS AND SLAY HER WITH STRENGTH
Ere I speak how the hare should be hunted, it is to be known that the hare is king of all venery, for all blowing and the fair terms of hunting cometh of the seeking and the finding of the hare. For certain it is the most marvellous beast that is, for ever she fumeth or croteth and roungeth and beareth tallow and grease. And though men say that she fumeth inasmuch as she beareth tallow, yet that which cometh from her is not called fumes but croteys. ”

“ During the century that has just closed Englishmen have stood foremost in all branches of sport, at least so far as the chase has been carried on by those who have not followed it as a profession. Here and there in the world whole populations have remained hunters, to whom the chase was part of their regular work—delightful and adventurous, but still work. ”

“ Men slay hares with greyhounds, and with running hounds by strength, as in England, but elsewhere they slay them also with small pockets, and with purse nets, and with small nets, with hare pipes, and with long nets, and with small cords that men cast where they make their breaking of the small twigs when they go to their pastures, as I have before said.27 But, truly, I trow no good hunter would slay them so for any good. When they be in their heat of love and pass any place where conies be, the most part of them will follow after her as the hounds follow after a bitch or a brache. ”

“ One is that he leave not the knowledge nor the [Pg 5] service of God, from whom all good cometh, for his hunting. The second that he lose not the service of his master for his hunting, nor his own duties which might profit him most. Now shall I prove how a hunter may not fall into any of the seven deadly sins. When a man is idle and reckless without work, and be not occupied in doing some thing, he abides in his bed or in his chamber, a thing which draweth men to imaginations of fleshly lust and pleasure. ”

“ And when he has come home, [Pg 8] should he less think to do evil, for he hath enough to do to think of his supper, and to ease himself and his horse, and to sleep, and to take his rest, for he is weary, and to dry himself of the dew or peradventure of the rain. And therefore I say that all the time of the hunter is without idleness and without evil thoughts, and without evil works of sin, for as I have said idleness is the foundation of all vices and sins. ”

“ Men hunt them but seldom, but if the hounds find peradventure such a cat, he would not be long hunted for soon he putteth him to his defence or he runneth up a tree. And because he flieth not long therefore shall I speak but little of his hunting, for in hunting him there is no need of great mastery. They bear their kittens and are in their love as other cats, save that they have but two kittens at once. They dwell in hollow trees and there they make their ligging100 and their beds of ferns and of grass. The cat helpeth as badly to nourish his kittens as the wolf doth his whelps. ”

“ And as oft as any hunter beginneth to blow every man shall blow for the death to make the better noise, and make the hounds better know the horns and the bay, and when they have bayed a while let the hounds come to eat the flesh, to the hard bone from in front of the shoulders right to the head, for that is their reward of right. ”

“ Gaston Phœbus's La Chasse was written just over a century before the discovery of America; "The Master of Game" some fifteen or twenty years later. The former has been reprinted many times. Mr. Baillie-Grohman in reproducing (for the first time) the latter in such beautiful form has rendered a real service to all lovers of sport, of nature, and of books—and no one can get the highest enjoyment out of sport unless he can live over again in the library the keen pleasure he experienced in the wilderness.
In modern life big-game hunting has assumed many widely varied forms. ”

“ And when the hart steppeth upon the grass and ye cannot see the stepping with your eyes, then ye shall put your hand in the form of the foot that hunters call the trace, and if ye see that the form of the foot be of four fingers of breadth, ye may judge that it is a great hart by the trace. And if the sole of the foot be of three fingers' breadth ye may judge him a hart of ten, and if ye see that he hath well broken the earth and trodden well the grass, it is a token that it is a great hart and a heavy deer. ”

“ Nevertheless I have seen when a lymer sueth long and could not so soon move him as men would, that they have taken up the lymer and uncoupled one or two hounds, to have him sooner found, but this truly no skilful hunter ought to do, unless the lymer cannot put it forth, nor bring it any further, or that the deer be stirring in the quarter, and hath not waited for the moving of the lymer. Or else that it be so far advanced in the day, that the sun hath dried up the fues, and that they have little day enough to run him and hunt him with strength. ”

“ Nevertheless it is to wit that if the Lord be not come soon enough to the bay, while the deer is alive they ought to hold the bay as long as they can, without rebuking the hounds, to await the Lord, and if the Lord remains away too long, when the deer is spayed and laid on one side, before they do ought else, the Master of the Game, or which of the horsemen that be there at the death, should mount their horses and every man draw his way blowing the death till one of them hath met with him, or heard of him, and brought him thither. ”

“ No hound seems to belong so peculiarly to the epoch of chivalry as the greyhound, and indeed one can scarcely picture a knight without one. A Welsh proverb declared that a gentleman might be known "by his hawk, his horse, and his greyhound." ”

“ Nevertheless there be many other reasons which are too long to tell, and also every man that hath good reason knoweth well that idleness is the foundation of all evil imaginations. Now shall I prove how imagination is lord and master of all works, good or evil, that man's body or his limbs do. ”