The Hunter's Tale

Author’s Note

As always, so many sources studied over so many years have been drawn on for this book that there is no way to detail most of them, but very specifically used this time were John Cummins’ marvelous The Hound and the Hawk-a gathering in and explaining of a number of medieval hunting treatises-and The Master of Game by Edward, second duke of York (died 1415 in the Battle of Agincourt)-a Middle English rendering and extension of Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix’s famous The Book of Hunting from the 1300s-and The Hunting Book by Gabriel Bise for its reproductions of full-color pictures from a 1400s manuscript of Gaston Phoebus’ work. For a discourse on modern open-field coursing, Gazehounds and Coursing by M.H. Dutch Salmon was invaluable.

Medieval breeds of dogs were not necessarily the same as modern ones, and terms from then may have different meanings now or be totally unfamiliar. Rather than explain the differences and specifics of lymers, raches, alauntes, kenets, harriers, spaniels, mastiffs, greyhounds, and more, I have kept, for the most part, simply to “hound,” lest I end up writing my own treatise on medieval hounds instead of a novel.

The time of grace-when some animals could be hunted but not others-mentioned here differs from dates given in some sources because times of grace differ from one medieval source to another, dependent on author and place. I used what seemed most likely for where the story is set.

The “picnic” in Chapter 3 is not an anachronism but so much a part of medieval hunting that Chapter XXXIII of The Master of Game is given over to describing how it should be done, including, “And the place where the gathering shall be made should be in a fair mead… beside some running brook.”

The story of the herdboy shifting the cows with a slingshot was my father’s story from his own boyhood-though, almost needless to say, the type of slingshot differed.

Specific and particular thanks must go to Cheryl Tregillis of Wyndfal Irish Wolfhounds for urging me to write a book with hounds and hunting in it and then providing me not only with information on wolfhounds but several chances to spend time with some of her own gentle, beautiful, charming Irish wolfhounds, successful in the show ring and fleet of foot in the field.

Thanks are likewise due Dr. Carol Manning, who advised on how a small wound in the throat could be sufficient to kill. An author has ideas but needs authorities to tell her what’s possible.

Now I pray unto every creature that hath heard or read this little treatise… that where there is too little of good language that of their benignity and grace they will add more, and there where there is too much superfluity they will also abridge it as may seem best by their good and wise discretion.

[from the end of The Master of Game]