HOW A GREAT HART IS TO BE KNOWN BY HIS "FUMES" (EXCREMENTS)

(From MS. f. fr. 616, Bib. Nat., Paris)

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CHAPTER XXV
HOW A MAN SHOULD KNOW A GREAT HART BY THE PLACE WHERE HE HATH FRAYED HIS HEAD

Furthermore ye should know a great hart by the fraying (for if ye find where the hart hath frayed),[178] and see that the wood is great where he hath frayed, and he hath not bent it, and the tree is frayed well high, and he hath frayed the bark away, and broken the branches and wreathed them a good height, and if the branches are of a good size, it is a sign that he is a great hart and that he should bear a high head and well troched, for by the troching[179] he breaketh such high the boughs that he cannot fold them under him. For if the fraying were bare and he had frayed the boughs under him, it is no token that it be a great hart, and especially if the trees where he had frayed were small. Nevertheless men have seen some great deer fray sometimes to a little tree, but not commonly, but a young deer shall ever more[180] fray to a great tree, and therefore should ye look at several frayings. And if ye see the aforesaid tokens oftener upon the great trees than upon the small ye may deem him a great hart. And if the frayings be continually in small trees and low, he is not chaceable and should be refused. Also ye may know a great hart by his lairs. When a great hart shall come in the morning from his pasture, he shall go to his lair and then a great while after he shall rise and go elsewhere there where he would abide all the day. Then when ye shall rise and come to the lair there where the hart hath lain and rested, if ye see it great and broad and well trodden and the grass well pressed down, and at the rising when he passeth out of his lair, if ye see that the foot and the knees have well thrust down the earth and pressed the grass down it is a token that it is a great deer and a heavy (one). And if at the rising he make no such tokens, because that he hath been there but a little while, so that his lair be long and broad ye may deem him a hart chaceable. Also ye may know a great hart by the bearing of the wood, for when a great hart hath a high head and a large (one) and goeth through a thick wood, he findeth the young wood and tender boughs, his head is harder than the wood, then he breaketh the wood aside and mingleth the boughs one upon the other, for he beareth them and putteth them otherwise than they were wont to be by their own kind. And when the glades of the woods are high and broad then he may deem him a great hart, for if he had not a high head and wide he could not make his ways high and large. If it happen so that ye find such glades and have no lymer with you, if ye will know at what time this glade was made, ye must set your visage in the middle of this glade, and keep your breath, in the best wise that ye may, and if ye find that the spider hath made her web in the middle of them, it is a token that it is of no good time[181] or at the least it is of the middle (of the noon) of the day before. Nevertheless ye should fetch your lymer for so ye should know better. Also ye may know a great hart by the steps that in England is called trace. And that is called stepping,[182] when he steppeth in a place where the grass is well thick, so that the man may not see therein the form of the foot, or when he steppeth in other places, where no grass is but dust or sand and hard country, where fallen leaves or other things hinder to see the form of the foot. And when the hart steppeth upon the grass and ye cannot see the stepping with your eyes, then ye shall put your hand in the form of the foot that hunters call the trace, and if ye see that the form of the foot be of four fingers of breadth, ye may judge that it is a great hart by the trace. And if the sole of the foot be of three fingers' breadth ye may judge him a hart of ten, and if ye see that he hath well broken the earth and trodden well the grass, it is a token that it is a great hart and a heavy deer. And if ye cannot well see it for the hardness of the earth, or for the dust, then ye must stoop down for to take away the dust and blow it away from the form of the foot until the time that ye may clearly see the form that is called the trace. And if ye cannot see it in one place, ye should follow the trace until the time that ye can well see it at your ease. And if ye can see none in any place, ye should put your hand in the form of the foot, for then ye shall find how the earth is broke with the cleeves of the foot on either side, and then ye can judge it for a great hart or a hart chaceable, as I have said before by the treading of the grass; and if leaves or other things be within the form that ye may not see at your ease, ye should take away the leaves all softly or the other things with your hands, so that ye undo not the form of the foot and blow within and do the other things as I have before said.[183] (After I will tell you how a man shall speak among good hunters of the office of venery.) First he shall speak but a little, and boast little, and well (work[184]) and subtlely, and he must be wise and do his craft busily, for a hunter should not be a herald of his craft. And if it happen that he be among good hunters that speaketh of hunting he should speak in this manner. First if men ask him of pastures he may answer as of harts and for all other deer, sweet pastures, and of all biting beasts as of wild boar, wolves, and other biting beasts he may answer, they feed, as I have said before. And if men speak of the fumes ye shall call fumes of a hart, croteying of a buck, and of a roebuck in the same wise of a wild boar and of black beasts and of wolves ye shall call it lesses, and of hare and of conies ye shall say they crotey, of the fox wagging, of the grey the wardrobe, and of other stinking beasts they shall call it drit, and that of the otter he shall call sprainting as before is said. And if men asketh of the beasts' feet, of the harts ye shall say the trace of a hart and also of a buck, and that of the wild boar and of the wolf also they call traces beyond the sea. And that of the stinking beasts that men call vermin, he shall call them steps as I have said. And if he hath seen a hart with his eyes, there are three kinds of hues of them, that one is called brown, the other yellow, and the third dun, and so he may call them as he thinketh that they beareth all their hues. And if men ask what head beareth the hart he hath seen, he shall always answer by even and not by odd, for if he be forked on the right side, and lack not of his rights[185] beneath, and on the right[186] side antler and royal and surroyal and not forked but only the beam, he shall say it is a hart of ten at default,[187] for it is always called even of the greater number. And every buck's tines should be reckoned as soon as a man can hang a baldric or a leash[188] thereupon and not otherwise. And when a hart beareth as many tines on the one side as on the other, he may say if he be but forked that he is a hart of ten, and if he be troched of three he is a hart of twelve, if he be troched of four he is a hart of sixteen, always if it be seen that he hath his rights beneath as before is said. And if he lack any of his rights beneath he must abate so many on the top, for a hart's head should begin to be described from the mule[189] upwards, and if he hath more by two on the one side than on the other, you must take from the one and count up that other withal, as I shall more clearly speak in a chapter hereafter in describing a hart's head. And if it be so that the hart's trace have other tokens than I have said and he thinks him a hart chaceable, and men ask what hart it is he may say it is a hart of ten and no more. And if it seem to him a great hart and men ask what hart it is, he shall say it is a hart that the last year was of ten and should not be refused. And if he happen to have well seen him with his eye or the before said tokens, so that he knoweth fully that it is as great a hart as a hart may be, if men ask him what hart it is, he may say it is a great hart and an old deer. And that is the greatest word that he may say as I have said before. And if men ask him whereby he knoweth it, he may say for, he hath good bones[190] and a good talon and a good sole of foot, for these four[191] things makes the trace great, or by fair lairs or the grass or the earth well pressed or by the high head,[192] or by the fumes or else other tokens as I have said before. And if he see a hart that hath a well affeted (fashioned) head after the height and the shape and the tines well ranged by good measure, the one from the other, and men ask him what he beareth he may answer that he beareth a great head and fair of beam, and of all his rights, and well opened; and if a man ask him what head he beareth, he shall answer that he beareth a fair head by all tokens and well grown. And if he see a hart that hath a low head or a high, or a great, or a small, and it be thick set, high and low and men ask him what head he beareth he may answer he bears a thick set head after his making, or that he hath low or small or other manner whatever it be. And if he see a hart that hath a diverse head, or that antlers grow back or that the head hath double beams or other diversities than other harts commonly be wont to bear, and men ask what head he bears, he may answer a diverse head or a counterfeit (abnormal), for it is counterfeited. And if he see a hart that beareth a high head that is wide and thin tined with long beams, if men ask what head he beareth, he shall answer a fair head and wide, and long beams, but it is not thick set neither well affeted. And if he see a hart that hath a low and a great and a thick set (head) and men ask what head he beareth, he may say he beareth a fair head and well affeted. And if men ask him by the head whereby he knoweth that it is a great hart and an old, he may answer, that the tokens of the great hart are by the head, and so the first knowledge is when he hath great beams all about as if they were set as it were with small stones, and the mules nigh the head and the antlers, the which are the first tines, be great and long and close to the mule and well apperyng (pearled) and the royals which are the second tines, be nigh the antlers, and of such form, save that they should not be so great; and all the other tines great and long and well set, and well ranged and the troching as I have said before, high and great, and all the beams all along both great and stony, as if they were full of gravel, and that all along the beams there be small vales that men call gutters, then he may say that he knows it is a great hart by the head.

[178] The words in brackets are omitted in our MS. but are in the Shirley MS. and in G. de F. p. 132.

[179] The tines at top. See Appendix: Antler.

[180] Ever more is here a mistake; it should be never more. G. de F. says: "Mes jeune cerf ne froyera jà en gros arbre" (p. 132). Also in the Shirley MS.