Lives of the Fur Folk

by Maud D. Haviland

In September the badgers lived well, and their sides grew sleek and round. They dug up the bykes of the orange-bellied bumble-bees, regardless of their stings, and guzzled over the sticky sweetness of the honeycomb. Later they visited the crab-trees, and spent many a blissful hour scrunching the sour pippins, and dropping the pieces about the grass, for the badger is an untidy feeder.

At the end of the month the 'earth' was littered down in preparation for the winter's Big Sleep. The whole family were still living under one roof, so to speak, but as they mostly occupied galleries far apart, it was almost more like a hotel. More than half a badger's life is spent in sleep—profound, blissful sleep, in a world of great silences and deep shadows. In October came a night with frost nip in the air, and a damp mist. Stubbs felt the chill in his bones as he crept to the entrance of the 'earth'; nevertheless, because he was hungry, he went out. Shortly afterwards his brother came up, snuffed the wind, stretched himself and yawned—then, because he was sleepy, and the night undesirable, he waddled back again and slept the clock round. The next night the rest did likewise—why hunt when they were not hungry? There are few winter nights in Knockdane that are not either cold or wet, and such nights the badgers eschewed. Now and again they went out for a few hours, but in the small hours when the morning frost set the grass in the meadows crackling with rime, they grunted disgustedly and returned to bed.

The whole family—parents and young ones—slept through December without ever stirring out, for snow was on the ground most of the month; but in January I know not what mysterious influence, creeping underground, knocked at the closed doors of the badgers' brains, and told them that the frost was gone and the night was warm. Stubbs woke first, and groped his way out. The air was mild and damp, and the roar of the river was borne to him as, rain-laden, it plunged over the weir. The dead leaves were moist and limp, and overhead a foggy moon peered through the bare trees. He trotted stiffly down the woods and visited his old haunts, but, go where he would, he could find nothing to eat but a few sodden mushrooms. An hour later he returned, wet and chilled, and lay down in his dormitory to suck his paws meditatively, until sleep overtook him again. His head dropped on his forepads, and, with a sigh, he fell into a slumber which lasted, with few waking hours, until the Spring Longing came to the woods, and roused him with the rest of the Fur Folk.

Spring nights are stormy with driving rain-showers, but under the trees the Fur Folk are sheltered from the blustering winds, and come and go from dusk to dawn; for the day on which the first throstle sings is the beginning of the new year in the woods.

The badgers came out with the rest, but they were lean with long fasting, and their toes were tender with much drowsy sucking. Stubbs went through the elder trees, whose buds were growing big and purple, and he dug up and ate the wild arum tubers. They were very bitter and burning to taste, but a badger's palate is not a delicate one, and he devoured them greedily. Besides, there was nothing else left to eat in the woods, for, during the recent famine time, they had been patrolled up and down by bird and beast.

In March, Mother Badger had another litter of cubs in the old nursery, but there were fewer grown badgers in the 'earth' at this time, for the younger boar cub of the previous season had been 'stopped' out one February night, and had never come home again—perhaps the Carkenny hounds knew why. Stubbs lived a bachelor life by himself at one end of the 'earth.' Even now he was scarcely thoroughly awake after his long sleep, and on any cold or wet night he lay abed. By April, however, he felt better, and put on flesh; and it was then that he finally broke with his family. One night he went round by the Heronry where grew Father Badger's 'Claw-Clapping' tree, a young wych-elm. Father Badger used to resort thither to polish his long digging claws and to scratch himself, and his feet had patted down a little track round the roots. Stubbs went up to the sapling, and began, with great satisfaction, to chisel off strips of bark, for he was proud of his claws. He grunted contentedly, and rubbed his shaggy sides up and down—and, the next minute, heavy as he was, he was sent flying head over heels; for Father Badger had come along, and was wroth to find his place usurped. For the first time he realised that, during the Big Sleep, the cub had become a full-grown badger almost as strong as himself. Therefore he challenged; and it was a sign that Stubbs had arrived at adult badger estate that he accepted his father's challenge. They ran at one another, growling ferociously, but they did not use their teeth, only thrust with their snouts; for it is the law of the Fur Folk that two of a kind shall not fight to the death, and it is a law that is not often broken. However, Father Badger was the older and the heavier, and, although a year later Stubbs would have been fully his match, he drove his son away. After that Stubbs did not return to the 'earth' among the elder trees, but led a nomadic life in the woods for some weeks, sleeping in a dry drain or old rabbit-hole, and at night wandering miles abroad over the countryside. In those days there was a drouth in Knockdane, and the streams dried up. It was serious for the badger people, for they were often obliged to search very far afield for water. Sometimes a shower fell, but never enough to fill the springs. At such times the badgers resorted to a hollow in a path, along which horses had passed in winter when the mud was deep. Now, after a shower, each hoof-mark was a clay goblet of water, and the badgers' thirsty red tongues used to lick out the contents gratefully.

One close night in May, Stubbs went down to the Great White House, where the men live. The Great White House stands on a little oasis of open grass, but the woods come up close round, and the rabbits trespass under the very windows. In the field round, the men have planted roots which are new to badger palates, and some of them are very good. Stubbs sampled them all. Some were narcissus and hyacinth, evil-tasting and slimy, and he threw them aside. Others, the crocus and tulip, were better; but best of all were the snowdrops, which were sweet and nutty, and of these Stubbs ate all he could find. At last he ventured quite close to the walls of the house. Faint notes of music beat from one of the windows, and these made Stubbs raise his head suspiciously. All at once it seemed that eyes were watching him from the shadow to his leeward side—mysterious eyes, eager yet timid. He grunted, and dug up another bulb, but the sensation of being watched grew stronger. Instinctively he knew that it was not an enemy who spied upon him thus—rather the contrary. He could neither see, hear, nor wind anything unusual, but that mysterious sense which is perhaps the parent, not the outcome, of the other senses, told him that the watcher was hidden under the oak tree to his right, and that he would do well to pursue it thither. Suddenly the shutters of a window were thrown open, and a golden beam of light was flung across the darkness. It lit up the rough bark of the oak tree on the lawn, and at the foot of the latter, blinking resentfully in the light, Stubbs saw the owner of the watching eyes. In a second or two the light was shut off, and the music grew muffled again; but Stubbs thought no more of bulbs, for he heard the patter of feet which scampered back to the wood, and gave chase.

Perhaps she did not run very fast, at all events he soon came up with her. In size she was less than himself, but judged by badger standards her charms were surpassing. Also she did not repulse him, for she came from the Ballinakill 'earth' outside Knockdane, and had dwelt mateless for many days.

So Stubbs and Grunter hunted together that night; that is, Grunter set the pace and chose the paths, and Stubbs followed. They went by the main badger path, and crossed the lane which runs across Knockdane, slithering down a five-foot drop which is scored in every direction by deep claw-prints, and entered the Big Meadow together. The cattle slept in the dewy grass, and, stealing in among them, the badgers hunted every inch of ground for beetles. Every now and then a 'bum-clock' boomed overhead, and then fell 'splotch' to earth. Small chance had it when the badgers' noses probed for it in the grass: but Grunter took the lion's share, for in the wood there is a law that, during the days of courtship, the female may take what she will and her mate shall not gainsay her.

Henceforward they hunted together night after night. Sometimes they sought for partridges' eggs—eggs are a badger tit-bit, when he can find them, which is not often—and these went down, shell and all, 'crunch-squolch.' Sometimes they beat a way through the standing meadow grass, leaving a track behind which two days' sun would not eradicate, or searched for wasps' nests in the hedge-banks. These were honeymoon nights, and, sweet though they were, they could not last for ever. It was the weather which first stimulated the pair to find a permanent 'set.' It was showery, with now a cool wet evening which made the badgers think of the comfort of a deep burrow in preference to a makeshift rabbit-hole or drain; and then again came a hot starlit night, a hunter's night, when Stubbs filed his claws on a tree-trunk because of the wasted digger's energy within him.