LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

to their haunts for to let their heads wax, near the towns and villages in the plains there where they find good feeding in the new growing lands. And when the grass is high and well waxen they withdraw into the greatest hills that they can find for the fair pastures and feeding and fair herbs that be thereupon. And also because there be no flies nor any other vermin, as there be in the plain country. And also so doth the cattle which come down from the hills in winter time, and in the summer time draw to the hills. And all the time from rutting time into Whitsunday great deer and old will be found in the plains, but from Whitsunday²⁶ to rutting time men shall find but few great deer save upon the hills, if there are any (hills) near or within four or five miles, and this is truth unless it be some young deer calved in the plains, but of those that come from the hills there will be none. And every day in the heat of the day, and he be not hindered, from May to September, he goes to soil though he be not hunted.

      ¹ September 14. See Appendix: Hart, Seasons.

      ² An engine of war used for throwing stones.

      ³ G. de F., p. 12. “Ainsi que fet un homme bien amoureus” (“As does a man much in love).”

      ⁴ This word ligging is still in use in Yorkshire, meaning lair, or bed, or resting-place. In Devonshire it is spelt “layer.” Fortescue, p. 132.

      ⁵ G. de F., p. 12, has “limer” instead of “greyhound.”

      ⁶ This passage is confused. In G. de F., p. 12, we find that the passage runs: “Et aussi il y a ruyt en divers lieux de la forest et on paix ne peut estre en nul lieu, fors que dedans le part.” Lavallée translates these last five words, “C’est à dire qu’il n’y a de paix que lorsque les biches sont pleines.” In the exceedingly faulty first edition by Verard, the word “part” is printed “parc,” as it is in our MS.

      ⁷ G. de F., p. 14, says the harts go to gravel-pits and bogs to fray.

      ⁸ The MS. transcriber’s mistake. It should be “cow.”

      ⁹ G. de F. has “2 calves” as it should be.

      ¹⁰ G. de F. has “greyhound,” as it should be (p. 15): “Et dès lors vont ils jà si tost que un levrier a assés à fere de l’ateindre, ainsi comme un trait d’arcbaleste” (“And from that time they go so quickly that a greyhound has as much to do to catch him as he would the bolt from a crossbow).”

      ¹¹ Well proportioned. See Appendix: Antler.

      ¹² Shirley MS. has the addition here: “Which be on top.”

      ¹³ In modern sporting terms, a warrantable deer.

      ¹⁴ See Appendix: Curée.

      ¹⁵ Should be: venison.

      ¹⁶ Harness, appurtenances. See Appendix: Harness.

      ¹⁷ Means from a cross-bow or long-bow.

      ¹⁸ Go off the scent.

      ¹⁹ This should read as G. de F. has it (p. 20): “Et aussi affin que les chiens ne puissent bien assentir de luy, quar ilz auront la Cueue au vent et non pas le nez” (“And also that the hounds shall not be able to wind him, as they will have their tails in the wind and not their noses”).

      ²⁰ Ponds, pools. See Appendix: Stankes.

      ²¹ G. de F., p. 21: “Et s’il fuit de fort longe aux chiens, c’est à dire que il les ait bien esloinhés.” See Appendix: “Forlonge.”

      ²² Most old writers on the natural history of deer repeat this fable. See Appendix: Hart.

      ²³ See Appendix: Hart.

      ²⁴ Nativity of St. John the Baptist, June 24.

      ²⁵ See Appendix: Grease.

      ²⁶ This sentence reads somewhat confusedly in our MS., so I have taken this rendering straight from G. de F., p. 23.

CHAPTER IV

      OF THE BUCK AND OF HIS NATURE

      A BUCK is a diverse beast, he hath not his hair as a hart, for he is more white, and also he hath not such a head. He is less than a hart and is larger than a roe. A buck’s head is palmed with a long palming, and he beareth more tines than doth a hart. His head cannot be well described without painting. They have a longer tail than the hart, and more grease on their haunches than a hart. They are fawned in the month of June and shortly to say they have the nature of the hart, save only that the hart goeth sooner to rut and is sooner in his season again, also in all things of their kind the hart goeth before the buck. For when the hart hath been fifteen days at rut the buck scarcely beginneth to be in heat and bellow.

      And also men go not to sue him with a lymer, nor do men go to harbour him as men do to the hart. Nor are his fumes put in judgment as those of the hart, but men judge him by the foot other head as I shall say more plainly hereafter. They crotey their fumes in diverse manners according to the time and pasture, as doth the hart, but oftener black and dry than otherwise. When they are hunted they bound again into their coverts and fly not so long as doth the hart, for sometimes they run upon the hounds.¹ And they run long and fly ever if they can by the high ways and always with the change. They let themselves be taken at the water and beat the brooks as a hart, but not with such great malice as the hart, nor so gynnously (cunningly) and also they go not to such great rivers as the hart. They run faster at the beginning than doth the hart. They bolk (bellow) about when they go to rut, not as a hart doth, but much lower than the hart, and rattling in the throat. Their nature and that of the hart do not love (to be) together, for gladly would they not dwell there where many harts be, nor the harts there where the bucks be namely together in herds. The buck’s flesh is more savoury² than is that of the hart or of the roebuck. The venison of them is right good if kept and salted as that of the hart. They abide oft in a dry country and always commonly in herd with other bucks. Their season lasteth from the month of May into the middle of September. And commonly they dwell in a high country where there be valleys and small hills. He is undone as the hart.

      ¹ They do not make such a long flight as the red deer but by ringing return to the hounds.

      ² G. de F., p. 29, completes the sense of this sentence by saying that “the flesh of the buck is more savoury to all hounds than that of the stag or of the roe, and for this reason it is a bad change to hunt the stag with hounds which at some other time have eaten buck.”

CHAPTER V

      OF THE ROE AND OF HIS NATURE

      THE roebuck is a common beast enough, and therefore I need not to tell of his making, for there be few men that have not seen some of them. It is a good little beast and goodly for to hunt to whoso can do it as I shall devise hereafter, for there be few hunters that can well devise his nature. They go in their love that is called bokeyng in October,¹ and the bucking of them lasteth but fifteen days or there about. At the bucking of the roebuck he hath to do but with one female for all the season, and a male and a female abide together as the hinds² till the time that the female shall have her kids; and then the female parteth from the male and goeth to kid her kids far from thence, for the male would slay the young if he could find them. And when they be big that they can eat by themselves of the herbs and of the leaves and can run away, then the female cometh again to the male, and they shall ever be together unless they be slain, and if one hunt them and part them asunder one from another, they will come together again as soon as they can and will seek each other until the time that one of them have found the other. And the cause why the male and the female be evermore together as no other beast in this world, is that commonly the female hath two kids at once, one male and the other female, and because they are kidded together they hold evermore together. And yet if they were not kidded together of one female, yet is the nature of them such that they will always hold together as I have said before. When they withdraw from the bucking, they mew their heads, for men will find but few roebucks that have

Скачать книгу