OF THE WILD BOAR AND OF HIS NATURE
A wild boar is a common beast enough and therefore it needeth not to
tell of his making, for there be few gentlemen that have not seen some
of them. It is the beast of this world that is strongest armed, and
can sooner slay a man than any other. Neither is there any beast that
he could not slay if they were alone sooner than that other beast
could slay him,[66] be they lion or leopard, unless they should leap
upon his back, so that he could not turn on them with his teeth. And
there is neither lion nor leopard that slayeth a man at one stroke as
a boar doth, for they mostly kill with the raising of their claws and
through biting, but the wild boar slayeth a man with one stroke as
with a knife, and therefore he can slay any other beast sooner than
they could slay him. It is a proud[67] beast and fierce and perilous,
for many times have men seen much harm that he hath done. For some men
have seen him slit a man from knee up to the breast and slay him all
stark dead at one stroke so that he never spake thereafter.
[66] In spite of the boar being such a dangerous animal a wound from
his tusk was not considered so fatal as one from the antlers of a
stag. An old fourteenth-century saying was: "Pour le sanglier faut le
mire, mais pour le cerf convient la bière."
[67] Proud. G. de F., p. 56, _orguilleuse_. G. de F., p. 57, says
after this that he has often himself been thrown to the ground, he
with his courser, by a wild boar and the courser killed ("et moy
meismes a il porté moult de fois à terre moy et mon coursier, et mort
le coursier").
They go in their love to the brimming[68] as sows do about the feast
of St. Andrew[69], and are in their brimming love three weeks, and
when the sows are cool the boar does not leave them[70].
[68] Brimming. From Middle English _brime_, burning heat. It was also
used in the sense of valiant-spirited (Stratmann).
[69] November 30.
[70] G. de F., p. 57, adds: "comme fait l'ours."
He stays with them till the twelfth day after Christmas, and then the
boar leaves the sows and goeth to take his covert, and to seek his
livelihood alone, and thus he stays until the next year when he goeth
again to the sows. They abide not in one place one night as they do in
another, but they find their pasture for (till) all pastures fail them
as hawthorns[71] and other things. Sometimes a great boar has another
with him but this happens but seldom. They farrow[72] in March, and
once in the year they go in their love. And there are few wild sows
that farrow more than once in the year, nevertheless men have seen
them farrow twice in the year.
[71] A badly worded phrase, the meaning of which is not quite clear.
G. de F. has "acorns and beachmast" instead of hawthorns.
[72] Farrow. See Appendix: Wild Boar.
Sometimes they go far to their feeding between night and day, and
return to their covert and den ere it be day. But if the day overtakes
them on the way ere they can get to their covert they will abide in
some little thicket all that day until it be night. They wind a
man[73] as far as any other beast or farther. They live on herbs and
flowers especially in May, which maketh them renew[74] their hair and
their flesh. And some good hunters _of beyond the sea_ say that in
that time they bear medicine on account of the good herbs and the good
flowers that they eat, but thereupon I make no affirmation. They eat
all manner of fruits and all manner of corn, and when these fail them
they root[75] in the ground with the rowel of their snouts which is
right hard; they root deep in the ground till they find the roots of
the ferns and of the spurge and other roots of which they have the
savour (scent) in the earth. And therefore have I said they wind
wonderfully far and marvellously well. And also they eat all the
vermin and carrion and other foul things. They have a hard skin and
strong flesh, especially upon their shoulders which is called the
shield. Their season begins from the Holy Cross day in September[76]
to the feast of St. Andrew[77] for then they go to the brimming of the
sows. For they are in grease when they be withdrawn from the sows. The
sows are in season from the brimming time _which is to say the twelfth
day after Christmas_ till the time when they have farrowed. The boars
turn commonly to bay on leaving their dens for the pride that is in
them, and they run upon some hounds and at men also. But when the boar
is heated, or wrathful, or hurt, then he runneth upon all things that
he sees before him. He dwelleth in the strong wood and the thickest
that he can find and generally runneth in the most covered and
thickest way so that he may not be seen as he trusteth not much in his
running, but only in his defence and in his desperate deeds.[78] He
often stops and turns to bay, and _especially when he is at the
brimming_ and hath a little advantage before the hounds of the first
running, and these will never overtake him unless other new hounds be
uncoupled to him.
[73] G. de F., p. 58, says they wind acorns as well or better than a
bear, but nothing about winding a man. See Appendix: Wild Boar.
[74] From F. _renouveler_.
[75] See Appendix: Wild Boar.
[76] September 14.
[77] November 30.
[78] Despiteful or furious deeds. G. de F., p. 60, says that he only
trusts in his defences and his weapons ("en sa défense et en ses
armes").
He will well run and fly from the sun rising to the going down of the
sun, if he be a young boar of three years old. In the third March
counting that in which he was farrowed, he parteth from his mother and
may well engender at the year's end.[79]
[79] As this is somewhat confused we have followed G. de F.'s text in
the modern rendering.
They have four tusks, two in the jaw above and two in the nether jaw;
of small teeth speak not I, the which are like other boar's teeth. The
two tusks above serve for nothing except to sharpen his two nether
tusks and make them cut well _and men beyond the sea call_ the nether
tusks of the boar his arms or his files, with these they do great
harm, and also they call the tusks above gres[80] (grinders) for they
only serve to make the others sharp as I have said, and when they are
at bay they keep smiting their tusks together to make them sharp and
cut better. When men hunt the boar they commonly go to soil and soil
in the dirt and if they be hurt the soil is their medicine. The boar
that is in his third year or a little more is more perilous and more
swift and doth more harm than an old boar, as a young man more than an
old man. An old boar will be sooner dead than a young one for he is
proud and heavier and deigneth not to fly, and sooner he will run upon
a man than fly, and smiteth great strokes but not so perilously as a
young boar.
[80] From the French _grès_, grinding-stone or grinders.
A boar heareth wonderfully well and clearly, and when he is hunted and
cometh out of the forest or bush or when he is so hunted that he is
compelled to leave the country, he sorely dreads to take to the open
country and to leave the forest,[81] and therefore he puts his head
out of the wood before he puts out his body, then he abideth there and
harkeneth and looketh about and taketh the wind on every side. And if
that time he seeth anything that he thinks might hinder him in the way
he would go, then he turneth again into the wood. Then will he never
more come out though all the horns and all the holloaing of the world
were there. But when he has undertaken the way to go out he will spare
for nothing but will hold his way throughout. When he fleeth he maketh
but few turnings, but when he turneth to bay, and then he runneth upon
the hounds and upon the man. And for no stroke or wound that men do
him will he complain or cry, but when he runneth upon the men he
menaceth, strongly groaning. But while he can defend himself he
defendeth himself without complaint, and when he can no longer defend
himself there be few boars that will not complain or cry out when they
are overcome to the death.[82]
[81] G. de F., p. 60, has "fortress" instead of "forest."
[82] After the word "death" a full stop should occur, for in this MS.
and, singularly enough, also in the Shirley MS. the following words
have been omitted: "They drop their lesses," continuing "as other
swine do."
They drop their lesses (excrements) as other swine do, according to
their pasture being hard or soft.
But men do not take them to the curée nor are they judged as of the
hart or other beasts of venery.
A boar can with great pain live twenty years; he never casts his teeth
nor his tusks nor loses them unless by a stroke.[83] The boar's grease
is good as that of other tame swine, and their flesh also. Some men
say that by the foreleg of a boar one can know how old he is, for he
will have as many small pits in the forelegs as he has years, but of
this I make no affirmation. The sows lead about their pigs with them
till they have farrowed twice and no longer, and then they chase their
first pigs away from them for by that time they be two years old and
three Marches counting the March in which they were farrowed.[84] In
short they are like tame sows, excepting that they farrow but once in
a year and the tame sows farrow twice. When they be wroth they run at
both men and hounds and other beasts as (does) the wild boar and if
they cast down a man they abide longer upon him than doeth a boar, but
she cannot slay a man as soon as a boar for she has not such tusks as
the boar, but sometimes they do much harm by biting. Boars and sows go
to soil gladly when they go to their pasture, all day and when they
return they sharpen their tusks and cut against trees when they rub
themselves on coming from the soil. _What men call a trip of tame
swine is called of wild swine a sounder, that is to say if there be
passed a five or six together._
[83] At this point G. de F., p. 61, adds: "One says of all biting
beasts the trace, and of red beasts foot or view, and one can call
both one or the other the paths or the fues."
[84] See Appendix: Wild Boar.