When the fair Ysolt is parting from her lover Tristan she asks him to leave her this same brachet, and says that no huntsman's shooting dog will be kept with more honour:
"Husdent me lesse, ton brachet.
Ainz berseret à vénéor
N'ert gardeé à tel honor
Comme cist sera."
Ibid. i. 2660.
Jesse quotes Blount's "Antient Tenures": "In the 6th of John, Joan, late wife of John King, held a serjeantry in Stanhow, in the county of Norfolk, by the service of keeping 'Bracelettum deymerettum of our Lord the King,'" and Jesse thinks these might have been a bitch pack of deerhounds, overlooking the fact that it was only in later days that the words brache and rache were used for bitch hounds. As deymerettum meant fallow deer, the bracelettum or bercelettum deymerettum may be taken, I think, to mean those hounds that were used for buck-shooting (Jesse, ii. 21).
bernar; O. Fr. bernier, brenier, a man who has the charge of hounds, a huntsman, or, perhaps, would be more accurately described as a kennelman. The word seems to have been derived from the French brenier or bernier, one who paid his dues to his feudal lord in bran of which bread was made for the lord's hounds. Brenage, brennage, or bernage was the tenure on which land was held by the payment of bran, and the refuse of all grains, for the feeding of hounds. Berner in its first sense meant finder of bran, then feeder of hounds. This word seems to have remained in use in England long after it had disappeared from the language of French venery. Gaston no longer uses the word berner, but has valet de chiens.
furhunters. Our MS. (p. 74) declares that no one would hunt conies unless they were bisshunters, that is to say rabbits would not be hunted for the sake of sport, but only for the sake of their skins. Bisse, bys, byse was a fur much in vogue at the period of our MS., as its frequent mention in contemporaneous records testifies.
trick, deceit; O. N. blekkja (Strat.). Blanch, or blench, to head back the deer in its flight. Blancher or blencher, a person or thing placed to turn the deer in a particular direction.
from the French bosse, O. Fr. boce, boss, hump or swelling. Cotgrave says: "Boss, the first putting out of a Deere's head, formerly cast, which our woodmen call, if it bee a red Deere's, the burle, or seale, and, if a fallow Deeres, the button."
bowes (brisées). When the huntsman went to harbour the deer he broke little branches or twigs to mark the place where he noticed any signs of a stag. Also, at times during the chase he was instructed to do the same, placing the twigs pointing towards the direction the stag had gone, so that if the hounds lost the scent he could bring them back to his last markings, and put them on the line again. In harbouring the stag a twig was broken off and placed in front of the slot with the end pointing in the direction in which the stag was going; each time the harbourer turned in another direction a twig was to be broken and placed so as to show which way he took; sometimes the twig was merely bent and left hanging on the tree, sometimes broken off and put into the ground (in French this was called making brisées hautes or brisées basses). When making his ring-walks round the covert the harbourer was told to put a mark to every slot he came across; the slot of a stag was to be marked by scraping a line behind the heel, of a hind by making a line in front of the toe. If it was a fresh footing a branch or twig should be placed as well as the marking, for a hind one twig, for a stag two. If it be a stale trace no twig must be placed. Thus, if he returned later, the hunter would know if any beast had broken from or taken to covert since he harboured his stag in the morning. When the harbourer went to "move" the stag with his limer he was to make marks with boughs and branches so that the berners with their hounds should know which way to go should they be some distance from the limer (Roy Modus, x. v; xii. r; xiii. r; Du Fouilloux, 32 r). Blemish is the word used by Turbervile for brisées (Turbervile, 1611, p. 95, 104, 114).
The change, in the language of stag hunting, was the substitution of one deer for another in the chase. After the hounds have started chasing a stag, the hunted animal will often find another stag or a hind, and pushing it up with its horns or feet will oblige it to get up and take his place, lying down himself in the spot where he found the other, and keeping quiet, with his antlers close over his back, so that the hounds will, if care is not taken, go off in chase of the substitute. Sometimes a stag will go into a herd of deer and try to keep with them, trying to shake off his pursuers, and thus give them the change.