The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0077/00776.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 21KB | 320 lines

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$Title{Description Of Elizabethan England
Chapter XIV}
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$Author{Harrison, William}
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$Date{1577}
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Title:       Description Of Elizabethan England
Author:      Harrison, William
Date:        1577

Chapter XIV

Of Savage Beasts And Vermin
[1577, Book III., Chapters 7 and 12; 1587, Book III., Chapters 4 and 6.]

     It is none of the least blessings wherewith God hath endued this island
that it is void of noisome beasts, as lions, bears, tigers, pardes, wolves,
and such like, by means whereof our countrymen may travel in safety, and our
herds and flocks remain for the most part abroad in the field without any
herdman or keeper.

     This is chiefly spoken of the south and south-west parts of the island.
For, whereas we that dwell on this side of the Tweed may safely boast of our
security in this behalf, yet cannot the Scots do the like in every point
wherein their kingdom, sith they have grievous wolves and cruel foxes, beside
some others of like disposition continually conversant among them, to the
general hindrance of their husbandmen, and no small damage unto the
inhabitants of those quarters. The happy and fortunate want of these beasts in
England is universally ascribed to the politic government of King Edgar. ^1...

[Footnote 1: Here follows an account of the extermination of wolves, and a
reference to lions and wild bulls rampant in Scotland of old. - W.]

     Of foxes we have some, but no great store, and also badgers in our sandy
and light grounds, where woods, furze, broom, and plenty of shrubs are to
shroud them in when they be from their burrows, and thereunto warrens of
conies at hand to feed upon at will. Otherwise in clay, which we call the
cledgy mould, we seldom hear of any, because the moisture and the toughness of
the soil is such as will not suffer them to draw and make their burrows deep.
Certes, if I may freely say what I think, I suppose that these two kinds (I
mean foxes and badgers) are rather preserved by gentlemen to hunt and have
pastime withal at their own pleasures than otherwise suffered to live as not
able to be destroyed because of their great numbers. For such is the scantity
of them here in England, in comparison of the plenty that is to be seen in
other countries, and so earnestly are the inhabitants bent to root them out,
that, except it had been to bear thus with the recreations of their superiors
in this behalf, it could not otherwise have been chosen but that they should
have been utterly destroyed by many years agone.

     I might here intreat largely of other vermin, as the polecat, the
miniver, the weasel, stote, fulmart, squirrel, fitchew, and such like, which
Cardan includeth under the word Mustela: also of the otter, and likewise of
the beaver, whose hinder feet and tail only are supposed to be fish. Certes
the tail of this beast is like unto a thin whetstone, as the body unto a
monstrous rat: as the beast also itself is of such force in the teeth that it
will gnaw a hole through a thick plank, or shere through a double billet in a
night; it loveth also the stillest rivers, and it is given to them by nature
to go by flocks unto the woods at hand, where they gather sticks wherewith to
build their nests, wherein their bodies lie dry above the water, although they
so provide most commonly that their tails may hang within the same. It is also
reported that their said tails are delicate dish, and their stones of such
medicinal force that (as Vertomannus saith) four men smelling unto them each
after other did bleed at the nose through their attractive force, proceeding
from a vehement savour wherewith they are endued. There is greatest plenty of
them in Persia, chiefly about Balascham, from whence they and their dried cods
are brought into all quarters of the world, though not without some forgery by
such as provide them. And of all these here remembered, as the first sorts are
plentiful in every wood and hedgerow, so these latter, especially the otter
(for, to say the truth, we have not many beavers, but only in the Teisie in
Wales) is not wanting or to seek in many, but most, streams and rivers of this
isle; but it shall suffice in this sort to have named them, as I do finally
the martern, a beast of the chase, although for number I worthily doubt
whether that of our beavers or marterns may be thought to be the less.

     Other pernicious beasts we have not, except you repute the great plenty
of red and fallow deer whose colours are oft garled white and black, all white
or all black, and store of conies amongst the hurtful sort. Which although
that of themselves they are not offensive at all, yet their great numbers are
thought to be very prejudicial, and therefore justly reproved of many, as are
in like sort our huge flocks of sheep, whereon the greatest part of our soil
is employed almost in every place, and yet our mutton, wool, and felles never
the better cheap. The young males which our fallow deer do bring forth are
commonly named according to their several ages: for the first year it is a
fawn, the second a pricket, the third a sorel, the fourth a soare, the fifth a
buck of the first head, not bearing the name of a buck till he be five years
old: and from henceforth his age is commonly known by his head or horns.
Howbeit this notice of his years is not so certain but that the best woodman
may now and then be deceived in that account: for in some grounds a buck of
the first head will be as well headed as another in a high rowtie soil will be
in the fourth. It is also much to be marvelled at that, whereas, they do
yearly mew and cast their horns, yet in fighting they never break off where
they do grife or mew. Furthermore, in examining the condition of our red deer,
I find that the young male is called in the first year a calf, in the second a
broket, the third a spay, the fourth a staggon or stag, the fifth a great
stag, the sixth a hart, and so forth unto his death. And with him in degree of
venerie are accounted the hare, boar, and wolf. The fallow deer, as bucks and
does, are nourished in parks, and conies in warrens and burrows. As for hares,
they run at their own adventure, except some gentleman or other (for his
pleasure) do make an enclosure for them. Of these also the stag is accounted
for the most noble game, the fallow deer is the next, then the roe, whereof we
have indifferent store, and last of all the hare, not the least in estimation,
because the hunting of that seely beast is mother to all the terms, blasts,
and artificial devices that hunters do use. All which (notwithstanding our
custom) are pastimes more meet for ladies and gentlewomen to exercise
(whatsoever Franciscus Patritius saith to the contrary in his Institution of a
Prince) than for men of courage to follow, whose hunting should practise their
arms in tasting of their manhood, and dealing with such beasts as eftsoons
will turn again and offer them the hardest, rather than their horses' feet
which many times may carry them with dishonour from the field. ^2 . . .

[Footnote 2: Here follows a discourse on ancient boar-hunting, exalting it
above the degenerate sports of the day. This ends the chapter on "savage
beasts." - W.]

     If I should go about to make any long discourse of venomous beasts or
worms bred in England, I should attempt more than occasion itself would
readily offer, sith we have very few worms, but no beasts at all, that are
thought by their natural qualities to be either venomous or hurtful. First of
all, therefore, we have the adder (in our old Saxon tongue called an atter),
which some men do not rashly take to be the viper. Certes, if it be so, then
is not the viper author of the death of her ^3 parents, as some histories
affirm, and thereto Encelius, a late writer, in his De re Metallica, lib. 3,
cap. 38, where he maketh mention of a she adder which he saw in Sala, whose
womb (as he saith) was eaten out after a like fashion, her