Keep the lighted candle in front of the goshawk’s face. Now, my son, pull yourself together and keep your eyes open; let hand and foot be steady; don’t get flurried: think not you are after a goshawk. Say to yourself: “It is a leaf of a tree, or a barn-door fowl.” Don’t let your hand shake. This is the advice I give you: I cannot myself act up to it, nor do I believe that any falconer can. Well, hold the light[309] close to the goshawk’s breast. If she is asleep, head under wing, gently, ever so gently, stroke her breast with the horse-hair noose to awaken her, but have a care your nervous hand does not tremble but keeps the pole well away from her breast, or else she is off. Stroke her breast with the noose, ever so gently, till she withdraws her head from under her wing. Then pass the noose on to her neck, and pull her down to you.[310] On the spot, “seel” her eyes with blue[311] thread, using a fine needle,[312] and “mail”[313] her tightly.
FOOTNOTES:
[308] Nād-i ʿAlī for the Arabic Nādi ʿAlīyan (“call on ʿAlī”), a prayer to ʿAlī much used by Shiahs: an amulet on which the following prayer is inscribed, is also so-called:—
“Cry aloud to ʿAlī the possessor of wonders!
From him thou wilt find help from trouble!
He quickly removes all grief and anxiety!
By the Mission of Muḥammad and his own sanctity!”
Colonel J. P. Hamilton, in his Reminiscences of an Old Sportsman, writes: “The following superstitious ceremonies are mentioned in a book on falconry, supposed to be in the time of Edward the Confessor:—After a hawk has been ill and is sufficiently recovered to pursue the game, the owner has this admonition given to him: On the morrow tyde when thou goest out hawking, say, ‘In the name of the Lord, the birds of heaven shall be beneath thy feet.’ Also if he be hurt by the heron, say, ‘The lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered. Hallelujah.’ And if he be bitte of any man, say, ‘He that the wicked man doth bind, the Lord at his coming shall set free’.”
In the middle ages, at the festival of St. Hubert, “dogs and falcons were brought into the church to receive the priest’s benediction, to the sound of horn and trumpet:....”: vide Science and Literature in the Middle Ages, by Paul Lacroix.
[309] Chirāg͟h in m. c. is often incorrectly used in the sense of ‘light’ instead of ‘lamp.’