Hunding

“ Scholars do not, however, agree as to the place of the rebirth idea in the Helgi poems, some holding the view that it is an essential part of the story.
Hunding. (Page 32.)
It is possible that the werwolf story is a totem survival. If so, the Hunding feud might easily belong to it: dogs are the natural enemies of wolves. It is curious that the Irish werwolf Cormac has a feud with MacCon (i.e., Son of a Dog) , which means the same as Hunding. ”

“ Hunt and Hale have made their very tumble-down barn a perfect model of neatness. They sleep within about 3 yards of the horses' heels. Hunt in particular never likes to be far away from "my 'osses," as he calls them. I have less and less say in the matter of the 'osses as time goes on! I merely say: "Hunt, I want a horse and an orderly at 8 a.m. to-morrow."
It's useless for me to say I'd like Swallow or Tank or Jezebel, because, if I name one in particular, there's always some reason why it would be better not to ride that one that day. ”

“ Most huntsmen like to have all their hounds turned after them, when they make a cast: I wonder not at them for it, but I am always sorry when I see it done; for till I find a huntsman that is infallible, I shall continue to think the more my hounds spread the better: as long as they are within sight or hearing, it is sufficient. Many a time have I seen an obstinate hound hit off the scent, when an obstinate huntsman, by casting the wrong way, has done all in his power to prevent it. ”

“ Every act in the drama on nature’s stage is full of interest and life, from the moment that hounds burst like a flood through the kennel door, the huntsman astride his knowing horse shoves his horn into the case, and “whips” scramble into their saddles—until, when the Master has sounded “home,” the last good-night has been answered as heads are turned in different directions, and the patter of the pack on the muddy road, and the echo of the horses’ feet, fades on the ear as at kennel fadge they trot home in the dusk. ”

“ A good day and a kill in the open is a splendid thing. Everyone is pleased; the ride home seems short, and the port tastes well in the evening; but continuous bad luck, bad scent, and everyone taking a pleasure in telling you how well the neighbouring Hunts are doing is hard to bear. Still, it is a consolation when you get back among your hounds, which you have carefully bred yourself, to know for certain that the temporary loss of sport is not their fault, that they will do all they can for you, and that your turn must come again. ”

“ We can scarcely be surprised that lonely walks among the wild hills and cheerless moors of the North should be attended by superstitious fears, or that the strange unearthly cries, so like the yelping of dogs, uttered by wild fowl on their passage southwards, should engender a belief in a pack of spectral hounds. Wordsworth speaks of it in a sonnet, evidently connecting it with the German legend of the Wild Huntsman. He tells of a peasant, poor and aged, yet endowed ”

“ Sport for the field cannot be said to begin till November 1, but it is in the two or three months prior to this that a pack of hounds is made or marred, and these months must be given up to the Master and Huntsman to make the pack. I am fairly astonished to see that some establishments have actually taken to advertising their cub-hunting fixtures. This is the height of folly. There is no greater nuisance than a parcel of men, women, and grooms, the two former most likely smoking, all of them out on fresh horses, and talking in the rides of a covert. ”

“ He (that's my oracle, Cousin John) further adds that they are remarkably "steady"—which is more than can be said of their huntsman, who is constantly drunk—and that they consume a vast quantity of "flesh," which, far from being a meritorious, appears to me a disgusting tendency. They are capital "line-hunters," so says John; a "line-hunter," I imagine, is a hound that keeps snuffing about under the horses' feet, and must be a most useful auxiliary, when, as is often the case, the sportsmen are standing on the identical spot where the fox has crossed. ”

“ To chase for ever on aërial grounds.
In Devonshire the spectral pack is called the “Wisht hounds,” a name which Mr. Kelly derives from Wodin’s name, Wunsch, corrupted into “wisht.” It has a huntsman there who guides his pack over the wild wastes of Dartmoor; but I cannot hear of such a being in my own neighbourhood. The Gabriel hounds, as they call them in Durham and some parts of Yorkshire, are described as monstrous human-headed dogs, who traverse the air, and are often heard though seldom seen. Sometimes they appear to hang over a house, and then death or calamity are sure to visit it. ”

“ Many of the hounds, that had been worrying the stag, seeing a naked man rise as it were from out of the deep, for I had been obliged to dive several yards to break my fall from off the steep bank, instantly quitted the hold they had on the stag, and swam towards me, as if to seize upon more tempting prey. My fellow sportsmen, who had scarcely recovered from their astonishment at seeing me unexpectedly plunge into the water, and who now apprehended my inevitable destruction by the hounds seizing upon me, gave all at once an involuntary scream, and implored me to retreat as quickly as possible ”

“ They deserve it, and they value it. I always make it a point to have a little conversation with them before we leave the meet—in fact, I know many of the hounds in the various packs by name, and I love to notice them. Nothing pleases the huntsman more than to commend his charge: it makes him your friend at once. Many a time when I have been holding good place in a run, we have come across some dangerous fence which it would be death to ride in a crowd, and the huntsman's shout of "Let the lady first!" has secured me a safe jump, and a maintenance of my foremost position. ”

“ Bless you! it didn’t take an instant, and it seemed to me that the elephant only gave that trunk of his a gentle swing against Chunder’s side, and he was a couple of yards off, rolling over and over in the hay scattered about.
Up he jumps, wild as wild; and the first thing he catches sight of is Harry laughing fit to crack his sides, when Chunder rushes at him like a mad bull. ”

“ Where a cover left for you?
A year, a week, perhaps to-morrow
Brings the Huntsman's death halloo!
Day by day he gains upon us,
And the most that we can claim
Is that when the hounds are on us
We die game. ”

“ Of course, you must have plenty of good walks to breed a good pack of hounds, so that you can mercilessly afford to draft mute, noisy, skirting, or lame hounds, without getting your pack too short. A puppy show and a luncheon after it are good things; but do not have your huntsman’s health proposed. Indulgence in post-prandial rhetoric save by the experienced is apt to be dangerous. If you, or your huntsman, or both of you, are new to the country, I should say certainly go cub-hunting yourself every morning, so as to learn the locality yourself, or show it to your huntsman, as the case may be. ”

“ A huntsman, who used to pass the farm of Bailer, near Ostrel, observed, constantly in its neighbourhood, a hare or a wild duck, neither of which could he ever hit. At last he shot at the duck with a silver button from his jacket, and wounded it, but it fluttered away into the poultry-house. Going into the farm-kitchen to ask for the duck, he saw by the chimney an ugly old woman, with one shoe off, and blood streaming from her leg. She said she had fallen down and hurt herself, but the huntsman felt convinced he saw before him the witch he had shot, and hurried away with the utmost speed. ”

“ In the open when you have turned the hounds, which, if you get to their heads, is done with a word, your work is finished for the moment; on no account ride after them cracking your whip and rating them, or you will very likely drive them clean over the line of scent, and on a bad scenting day are nearly sure to do so. Your best plan is to canter back towards the huntsman so as to be ready to help him to prevent any of the hounds from taking up the line heel way. This stupid bungle is generally the huntsman’s own fault, as he ought to cast his hounds in front of him ”

“ Three notes on the huntsman’s horn, five or six couple of hounds streaming noiselessly across a field, the rest more clamorous, leaping and dashing through the gorse, a rush of horsemen towards the point at which the fox has broken; and the man who is really fond of hunting has not the vestige of an idea to spare for anything else in the world. ”

“ Gentlemen should take this necessary part of fox-hunting on themselves, for the whipper-in has other business to attend to.
Huntsmen, whilst their hounds are drawing, or are at fault, frequently make so much noise themselves, that they can hear nothing else: they should always have an ear to a halloo. I once saw an extraordinary instance of the want of it in my own huntsman, who was making so much noise with his hounds, which were then at fault, that a man hallooed a long while before he heard him ”

“ Many cultivate a type showing immense bone; but though a hound has legs as straight as an arrow, feet as round as a cat’s, and bone like a lion, he is useless if he has not the quality to go the pace, a nose to hunt with, and a voice that proclaims the true gospel. There is no doubt that to obtain wearing and working qualities, with uniformity of type, the safest line to follow in breeding hounds [Pg 91] for hunting is the middle size. Such hounds will be big enough to go through dirt, and not too big to draw and run in cover. ”

“ The hounds barked; men shouted; boys whistled. It was a scene of pleasing confusion. In a few seconds, I take it, the word to start was given, the huntsman blew his horn, and the hounds, barking as if with the intent to split their throats, went rushing after the people, who already were rushing after the deer. The hunt was off. I, also, was nearly off, because, in the muddle, which was the most marked feature of the moment, a man in pink cannoned against me, and almost succeeded in laying my steed and its rider low. "Look out where you're coming to!" ”

“ There are hounds that can drive, and hounds that can stoop; the ones that can draw, and the ones that are handy to cast. There are some that combine all these virtues, and, alas! others that are guilty at times of babbling, riot, skirting, and turning a deaf ear to the horn. The object of huntsmen has never been to turn their packs into mechanical fox-killers—to do so would be to drag down the kennel to the level of the steel trap and vulpicide’s gun. ”

“ When he is not heading immediately for a drain, he is nearly sure to turn sooner or later, and if when he turns, the horsemen ride the Hounds past the point, and the Huntsman aggravates the difficulty by picking up the Hounds and setting out on a casting experiment before they have time to get their heads down, the most sensitive noses in the world will be doing no more good than if they were plunged into the oatmeal and flesh in the Kennel trough. ”

“ Imagine the difficulty of breaking in a young hound for elk-hunting when the jungles are swarming with such a list of vermin! The better the pup the more he will persevere in hunting everything that he can possibly find; and with such a variety of animals, some of which have the most enticing scent, it is a source of endless trouble in teaching a young hound what to limit and what to avoid.
It is curious to witness the sagacity of the old hounds in joining or despising the opening note of a newcomer. ”

“ As expected, I soon started him and Holden's dog followed the deer straight to him. In about three minutes whang went Holden's gun; I ran with all my might. The dog had stopped barking and I knew the deer was ours. But, when I got to the road, I heard Holden hallooing loudly for help. The deer had jumped across the road into the old tree tops and the dog caught him. Holden saw that the deer was getting the better of the dog, laid down his gun, took out his knife and went for the deer. When he got up to the deer the deer paid all his attention to him instead of the dog. ”

“ The Hunt servants cannot get about to do their work, and the hounds get kicked. Never commit “the fatal mistake” of not beginning cub-hunting as soon as the corn is cut; and never take fright, and leave off, because the ground gets hard. To do this is ruination to your entry and to the one- and two-seasoned hunters, who will begin forty times wilder than the young ones. Breed your hounds with good legs and feet, and they will not take much harm, and if you do screw up a few old cub-hunting horses, what matter? ”

“ What would Huntingten do when he realised his condition and position? Run for his life, or grin and bear it? If the former, where would he go? If, living in Mayfair and falling in love with your neighbour's wife, the correct thing is to go and shoot lions in East Africa, is it, conversely, the correct thing to go and live in Mayfair if, shooting lions in East Africa, you fall in love with your neighbour's wife? Captain Strong smiled at his whimsicality, and showed his interesting face at its best. ”

“ As he approaches the wood, a wave of the hand sends the whole pack tumbling in, the two whips taking their stations like clockwork. With a "'War'oss!" the old Huntsman jumps into cover, and though lost to sight his voice is heard out of the woods cheering on his hounds. "Eugh, at 'im, my beauties. Eugh, [Pg 23] doit, eugh, boys," he shouts; and the pack, who have learnt to love, ay, and what is more, respect their tutor, fly to his holloa, each doing what our American cousins call their "level best" to please him. ”