Of the stag-chace in the open country, and of the ceremonies and costume attending it, at the castellated mansions of the Baron and opulent Squire, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, a tolerably accurate idea may be formed from the following statement, drawn up from the ancient writers on the subject, and from the works of the ingenious antiquary Strutt.
The inhabitants of the castle, and the hunters, were usually awakened very early in the morning by the lively sounding of the bugles, after which it was not unusual for two or more minstrels to sing an appropriate roundelay, beneath the windows of the master of the mansion, accompanied by the deep and mellow chorus of the attending rangers and falconers. Shakspeare alludes to a song of this kind in his Romeo and Juliet[276:B], which has been preserved entire by Thomas Ravenscroft[276:C], and commences thus:—
"The hunt is up, the hunt is up,
Sing merrily wee, the hunt is up;
The birds they sing,
The deere they fling;
Hey nony nony-no; &c."
The Yeoman Keepers, with their attendants, called Ragged Robins, to the number of ten or twelve, next made their appearance, leading the slow-hounds or brachets, by which the deer were roused. These men were usually dressed in Kendal green, with bugles and short hangers by their sides, and quarter-staffs in their hands, and were followed by the foresters with a number of greyhounds led in leashes for the purpose of plucking down the game.
This assemblage in the Court of the castle was soon augmented by a number of Retainers, or Yeomen who received a small annual pension for attendance on these occasions; they wore a livery, with the cognisance of the house to which they belonged, borne, as a badge of adherence, on their arms, and each man had a buckler on his shoulder, and a burnished broad sword hanging from his belt. Shortly afterwards appeared the pages and squires in hunting garbs on horse-back and on foot, and armed with spears and long and cross bows; and lastly the Baron, his friends, and the ladies.
The company thus completed, were conducted by the huntsmen to a thicket, in which, they knew, by previous observation, that a stag had been harboured all night. Into this cover the keeper entered, leading his ban-dog (a blood-hound tied in a leam or band), and as soon as the stag abandoned it, the greyhounds were slipped upon him; these, however, after running two or three miles, he usually threw out, by again entering cover, when the slow-hounds and prickers were sent in, to drive him from his strength. The poor animal now traverses the country for several miles, and after using every effort and manœuvre in vain, exhausted and breathless, his mouth embossed with foam, and the tears dropping from his eyes, he turns in despair upon his pursuers, and in this situation the boldest hunter of the train generally rides in, and, at some risque, dispatches him with a short hunting-sword. The treble-mort is then sounded, accompanied by the shouts of the men and the yelping of the dogs, and the huntsman ceremoniously presents his knife to the master of the chase, in order that he may take, as it is termed, the say of the deer.[278:A]