old wives tale

[dave1979]

Once the men of Castle Eden were fond of coursing. They bred and trained their own greyhounds and had rare sport. The carpenter would match his dog against the Blacksmiths and the Thatcher would challenge the Shepherd and on the first fine holiday they held their coursing matches around the villages.

 

One year however, they began to be troubled by a strange hare that threatened to spoil their sport. No sooner had they let slip their greyhounds than this strange animal came loping through the hedge and over the furrows. It was not sandy like the other hares, but darker and greyer, oloured almost like a mole, and it ran across the pth of the hounds as if to say, course after me, I am not so fleet as my brothers, and you will soon catch me. It never failed to turn the hounds from their proper game but no sooner had they turned to give chase than it led them a merry dance and drew them after it into the depths of Castle eden Dene. It was in vain for the men to whistle their dogs back. They would leave the hare, and long after it had eluded them they kept coursing through the Dene, barking madly and running backwards and forwards.

 

Sometimes they ran their heads against the boles of the trees and killed themselves, and sometimes they strayed so far they were lost. Instead of enjoying a days sport the men spent many weary hours tramping through the thick undergrowth in the Dene, searching for their greyhounds.

 

They soon grew to recognise the mischievous hare, and to wish that they could catch it and put an end to the pranks, for it bought them nothing but inconvenience and loss. It always outsripped the swiftest of their greyhounds, and no trap or snare was cunning enough to catch it. Day after day it ruined their coursing matches, until it seemed that soon the men would have to give them up altogether.

 

At last they held a meeting to discuss what they could do, when they tried to shoot it, every bullet missed, when they set traps, they were closed but no hare in them, When they coursed it they only lost another greyhound. What could they do?. They were at a loss, but at last one proposed that they should seek advice of an old man who lived near Castle eden and was skilful in healing sick horses and cows and may help them as he was learned in the ways of animals. So they went to visit the old man.

He listened very carefully to their story and said, this hare has powers that no other hare possesses, and it will not be caught by ordinary means. Tomorrow you must take with you not a greyhound, but a blood hound. If it is a black blood hound, all the better, and if it has been fed on human milk I think you will be sure of catching your hare.

 

The men thanked the old horse doctor and obeyed his instructions. The next day they took with them a coal black blood hound, and as soon as the hare appeared they loosed it. Immediately the hare made for the Dene, and the blood hound followed it. But so slow did the blood hound seem, that one of the men cried out, it is no good, it is like setting a magpie to keep up with a swallow.

 

Most of the men were of his mind, and when both the hare and hound had disappeared into the Dene, they tied their horses to the branches and prepared for another weary search. But just when they had given up hope they saw the hare running up the bank at the other side of the ravine, with its nose to the ground and its big ears flapping as it ran. For once the hare had been hunted out of its refuge in the woods and forced into open country. The men remounted their horses and crossed the Dene, just in time to see both hare and hound running in a bee line for the village of Easington.

 

They gave chase, and though the many gates and hedges prevented them from catching up, they drew close enough to see that the hare was limping and the blood hound was gaining on it. On they passed straggling hedges of tall thorn trees, and haystacks standing like cut loaves on a green cloth, and over pasture and pleated plough land, until they came upon Easington village.

 

Then the hare ran straight across the village green, on the opposite side of the green stood a little stone cottage, with curved brown tiles and a cracked dirty door. There was a little space cut away in the bottom of the door, like an opening left for hens to wander in and out, and through this the hare ran. It was almost too late, for just as it bolted through the opening the blood hound caught up to it, and seized it by one of its hind legs. However the hare shook its leg free and disappeared into the cottage.

 

The huntsman tried the door, but it was locked. Then they knocked but no one came to let them in. So at last the door burst open and they rushed into the room. But they could see no hare, instead they saw sitting before the fire ann old woman. She was hastily bandaging her heel and trying in vain to stop the blood flowing and to hide a wound. None of thre men spoke to her, perceiving that the old woman knew her witchcraft had been found out at last, they turned and left the room and never was their sport spoiled by the mischievous hare.

[Muggins.]

I enjoyed that read .. old wives tale or not.

[evo]

nice read ha ha,,wonder where she is now :hmm: living in thornton hough in the wirral,stopping everything and anything to do with hunting,,sad old lady

[bi9johnny]

what a nice peace could of read more of that ...where is it from.....is it a book