THE complicated, close and much-misunderstood relationship between fox and huntsman is adroitly captured in fiction by David Rook in T his 1970 novel The Belstone Fox. An abandoned cub, Tag, is brought up in hunt kennels before being released into the wild, where his cleverness in evading hounds engenders affection and respect from the huntsman who reared him. After many runs: "Tag had the devil in him the game had slowed down to the point where it had become boring, so now he was going to liven it up a little' and the fox leads the pack across a railway track with tragic, bloody results.
The huntsman, maddened by grief at the loss of his hounds, obsessively determines to catch Tag and, some members of the antihunting fraternity may be pleased to know, dies in the attempt; the fox and his hound protector, Merlin, soberly regard the man's prone body from a granite rock on Dartmoor. (The film The Fox and the Hound is a Disneyfied version of the tale, with Tag renamed Tod.)
The peerless naturalist writer and artist Denys Watkins-Pitchford (BB'), a schoolmaster and field sportsman, also captures that complex hunter-quarry dynamic in his evocative book Wild Lone: The Story of a Pytchley Fox (1938). BB's hero, Rufus, exemplifies both the 'survival of the fittest' principle by which wild species are preserved and the bitterly accepting 'Nature red in tooth and claw' line in Tennyson's grief poem In Memoriam. His Rufus is a ruthless, casual killer of wildlife, including hedgehogs, and domestic fowl, yet the heart of the hunting man rejoices as he evades the Pytchley Hunt time and time again: 'May the good earth keep you, now and for always. Good hunting, little red fox.'
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 13 - 20, 2023 (Double Issue) من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة December 13 - 20, 2023 (Double Issue) من Country Life UK.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Don't rain on Venus's parade
TENNIS has never been sexier—at least, that is what multiple critics of the new film Challengers are saying.
A rural reason to cheer
THERE was something particularly special for country people when one of the prestigious King’s Awards for Voluntary Service was presented last week.
My heart is in the Highlands
A LISTAIR MOFFAT’S many books on Scottish history are distinctive for the way he weaves poetry and literature, language and personal experience into broad-sweeping studies of particular regions or themes. In his latest— and among his most ambitious in scope—he juxtaposes a passage from MacMhaighstir Alasdair’s great sea poem Birlinn Chlann Raghnaill with his own account of filming a replica birlinn (Hebridean galley) as it glides into the Sound of Mull, ‘larch strakes swept up to a high prow’, saffron sail billowing, water sparkling as its oars dip and splash. Familiar from medieval tomb carvings, the birlinn is a potent symbol of the power of the Lords of the Isles.
Put it in print
Three sales furnished with the ever-rarer paper catalogues featured intriguing lots, including a North Carolina map by John Ogilby and a wine glass gibbeting Admiral Byng, the unfortunate scapegoat for the British loss of Minorca
The rake's progress
Good looks, a flair for the theatrical and an excellent marriage made John Astley’s fortune, but also swayed ‘le Titien Anglois’ away from painting into a dissolute life of wine and women, with some collecting on the side
Charter me this
There’s a whole world out there waiting to be explored and one of the most exciting ways to see it is from the water, says Emma Love, who rounds up the best boat charters
Hey ho, hey ho, it's off to sow we go
JUNE can be a tricky month for the gardener.
Floreat Etona
The link with the school and horticulture goes back to its royal founder, finds George Plumptre on a visit to the recently restored gardens
All in good time
Two decades in the planning, The Emory, designed by Sir Richard Rogers, is open. Think of it as a sieve that retains the best of contemporary hotel-keeping and lets the empty banality flow away
Come on down, the water's fine
Ratty might have preferred a picnic, but canalside fine dining is proving the key to success for new restaurant openings in east London today, finds Gilly Hopper