A HUNTER
From a seal of the thirteenth century
(Archives nationales).
There are many dangerous beasts in the great forests spread over France. Charlemagne (the tale runs) was once nearly hugged to death by a hard-pressed bear. Every nobleman has met with very ugly boars and also powerful stags who fought desperately.
As for the ladies (who, after all, are of one blood with their brothers) the hunt is almost the closest they can come to martial pleasures. Adela and her sister-in-law can wind horns, follow stags, control dogs almost as well as Conon and Aimery. Of course, they could ride from early girlhood. On occasion of ceremony they ride sidesaddle, but when hunting and hawking they go astride in wholly masculine manner. François has been riding now for years, and even little Anseau, barely seven, can cling to the back of a high steed and keep beside his mother, unless the hunt becomes extremely furious.
The equipments for hunting are simple. The only real luxury is in the hunting horns, the great olifants whose piercing notes can ring a mile through the still forests. These horns are made of ivory, chased with gold, and swung from each important rider's neck by a cord of silk or fine leather. The hunters wear leather gauntlets and use a bow and arrows, a "Danish ax" (a kind of tomahawk), a boar spear (the favorite hunting weapon), and also a large knife for emergencies. As the party mounts in the castle court, around them are leaping and yelping the great pack of dogs—white in teeth, red tongues, straining the leashes and barely controlled by their keepers. Dogs are loved almost as much as falcons, and Conon has a large collection of greyhounds, staghounds, boarhounds, and even of terrible bloodhounds. The kennels are replenished constantly, for stags and old boars can kill many dogs ere they are finally run down and speared. The gift of a litter of fine puppies is, therefore, often as welcome as a cast of hawks.
Chasing Down a Great Boar
It is a happy day if a beater comes in with tidings of "a wild boar, the strongest of which anyone has ever heard tell, in the forest of Pevele and Vicogne near the free holdings of St. Bertin." The baron will call out all the castle folk, and, if time admits, will send to some favorite vassals a few miles away to join the sport. With ten pairs of hounds and at least fifteen huntsmen and beaters he will thus organize the pursuit. The hunt will start at dawn, and it will take much of the forenoon to reach the forest where the boar has been discovered. Then (recites a jongleur) will begin "the baying and the yelping of dogs. They are unleashed. They bound through the thicket and find the tracks where the boar has dug and rooted for worms." One of the keepers then unleashes Blanchart, the baron's best bloodhound. Conon pats his head and they put him on the track.
The hound soon discovers the boar's lair. "It is a narrow place between the trunks of two uprooted oaks, near a spring. When the boar hears the baying of the hound he stands erect, spreads his enormous feet, and, disdaining flight, wheels around, until, judging himself within reaching distance of the good hound, he seizes it and fells it dead by his side. The baron would not have given Blanchart for one hundred deniers. Not hearing his barking he runs up, sword in hand; but he is too late; the boar is gone."
After that there is nothing for it except to keep up the chase relentlessly until evening, with the whole company gradually scattering through the forest until Conon at last overtakes the chase. But the baron is now alone save for a few dogs. "The boar has finally come to bay in front of a thicket. He begins by refreshing himself in a pool; then, raising his brows, rolling his eyes, and snorting, he bares his tusks and dashes upon the dogs, and rips them open or tears them to pieces, one after another, all except three of the best greyhounds. Then Conon arrives, and first of all he sees his dogs stretched out dead. 'Oh, son of a sow,' cries he, 'it is you that have disemboweled my dogs, have separated me from my friends, and have brought me I know not where! You shall die!' He leaps from his steed. At his shout the boar, despite bushes and ditches, leaps upon him swift as an arrow. Conon lets him come straight on, and, holding the boar spear straight before him, strikes at his breast. The point pierces the heart and goes out at the shoulder blade. Mortally wounded, the boar swerves to one side, totters, and falls."[19] So the chase ends and the dogs are avenged. The baron has to blow his horn many times ere his party finds him. Luckily the boar has run back somewhat toward St. Aliquis. They are therefore able to get home in noisy triumph that night, and all the castle women are under the red torches outside the gate to "oh!" and "ah!" at the boar and to praise the prowess of their seigneur.