[71] A badly worded phrase, the meaning of which is not quite clear. G. de F. has "acorns and beachmast" instead of hawthorns.
[72] Farrow. See Appendix: Wild Boar.
Sometimes they go far to their feeding between night and day, and return to their covert and den ere it be day. But if the day overtakes them on the way ere they can get to their covert they will abide in some little thicket all that day until it be night. They wind a man[73] as far as any other beast or farther. They live on herbs and flowers especially in May, which maketh them renew[74] their hair and t flesh. And some good hunters of beyond the sea say that in that time they bear medicine on account of the good herbs and the good flowers that they eat, but thereupon I make no affirmation. They eat all manner of fruits and all manner of corn, and when these fail them they root[75] in the ground with the rowel of their snouts which is right hard; they root deep in the ground till they find the roots of the ferns and of the spurge and other roots of which they have the savour (scent) in the earth. And therefore have I said they wind wonderfully far and marvellously well. And also they eat all the vermin and carrion and other foul things. They have a hard skin and strong flesh, especially upon their shoulders which is called the shield. Their season begins from the Holy Cross day in September[76] to the feast of St. Andrew[77] for then they go to the brimming of the sows. For they are in grease when they be withdrawn from the sows. The sows are in season from the brimming time which is to say the twelfth day after Christmas till the time when they have farrowed. The boars turn commonly to bay on leaving their dens for the pride that is in them, and they run upon some hounds and at men also. But when the boar is heated, or wrathful, or hurt, then he runneth upon all things that he sees before him. He dwelleth in the strong wood and the thickest that he can find and generally runneth in the most covered and thickest way so that he may not be seen as he trusteth not much in his running, but only in his defence and in his desperate deeds.[78] He often stops and turns to bay, and especially when he is at the brimming and hath a little advantage before the hounds of the first running, and these will never overtake him unless other new hounds be uncoupled to him.
[73] G. de F., p. 58, saysy wind acorns as well or better than a bear, but nothing about winding a man. See Appendix: Wild Boar.
[74] From F. renouveler.
[75] See Appendix: Wild Boar.
[76] September 14.
[77] November 30.
[78] Despiteful or furious deeds. G. de F., p. 60, says that he only trusts in his defences and his weapons ("en sa défense et en ses armes").
He will well run and fly from the sun rising to the going down of the sun, if he be a young boar of three years old. In the third March counting that in which he was farrowed, he parteth from his mother and may well engender at the year's end.[79]