The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on HuntingEdward, of Norwich
History
The Master of Game: The Oldest English Book on Hunting
Edward, of Norwich
Hunting -- Early works to 1800
They may get young whelps at the year's end, and then they leave their
father and their mother. And sometimes before they are twelve months
old if so be that their teeth are fully grown after their other small
teeth which they had first, for they teethe twice in the year when
they are whelps. The first teeth they cast when they are half a year
old _and also their hooks_. Then other teeth come to them which they
bear all their life-time and never cast. When these are full grown
again then they leave their father and mother and go on their
adventures, but notwithstanding that they go far they do not bide long
away from each other and if it happens that they meet with their
father and with their mother the which hath nourished them they will
make them joy and great reverence alway. And also I would have you
know that when a bitch and a wolf of her kind hath fellowship together
they generally stay evermore together, and though they sometimes go to
seek their feeding the one far from the other they will be together at
night if they can or at the farthest at the end of three days. And
such wolves in fellowship together get meat for their whelps the
father as well as the mother, save only that the wolf eateth first his
fill and then bears the remnant to his whelps. The bitch does not do
so for she beareth all her meat to her whelps and eateth with them.
And if the wolf is with the whelps when the mother cometh and she
bringeth anything and the wolf has not enough he taketh the feeding
from her and her whelps, and eateth his fill first, and then he
leaveth them the remnant, if there be any, and if there be not any
left they die of hunger, if they will, for he recketh but little so
that his belly be full. And when the mother seeth that, and has been
far to seek her meat she leaveth her meat a great way thence for her
whelps, and then she cometh to see if the wolf is with them, and if he
be there she stayeth till he be gone and then she bringeth them her
meat. But also the wolf is so malicious that when he seeth her come
without food he goeth and windeth her muzzle and if he windeth she
hath brought anything he taketh her by the teeth and biteth her so
that she must show him where she hath left her food. And when the
bitch perceiveth that the wolf doth this when she returneth to her
whelps she keepeth in the covert and doth not show herself if she
perceiveth that the wolf is with them, and if he be there she hideth
herself until the time he hath gone to his prey on account of his
great hunger, and when he is gone she brings her whelps her food for
to eat. And this is truth.
Some men say that she bathes her body and her head so that the wolf
should wind nothing of her feeding when she cometh to them, but of
this I make no affirmation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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