Hunting Songs, Volume One: The Lakeland Fell Packs, Ron Black and Wendy Fraser, Blurb Publishing, 2011, 75 pages, 7.50 pounds (soft cover), 15.50 pounds (hard cover), www.cumbrian-lad.comRon Black and Wendy Fraser collaborated on this collection—a folk history, really—of Lakeland hunting songs. Over the course of three-hundred years, followers of the fell packs of the English Lake District wrote these songs to memorialize historic runs, iconic huntsmen, special foxhounds, and—what pleased me especially—brave terriers! Perhaps I just never noticed, but I cannot recall any other book of hunting songs and poems that includes odes to these feisty little creatures.
Or perhaps I paid special notice here because I now happen to be the smitten owner of a nine-month-old Border terrier whose ancestors scurried in their determined fashion over those same fells on the English-Scottish border. Here’s the story of Badger and Butcher by Mr. and Mrs. Curry, and it’s still sung today!
The Story of Badger & Butcher
’Twas early spring in ’48 and hounds were running strong,
The rugged hills o’er Kirkstone Pass
Re-echoed with their song.
Well Reynard knew the fate in store
In vain he doubled back.
No trick he knew could avail
‘Gainst that famed Ullswater pack.
But fate that guards o’er man and beast
Came to succor him.
A cleft stood open in the rocks and Reynard dashed within.
But once again did fortune frown. Death followed in his wake.
For Badger and Butcher, they were there
To put his life at stake.
What happened then is only guess.
No man will ever know.
But the sun went down and darkness fell
With the terriers still below.
For fourteen days and fourteen nights
The Dalesmen fought the fell
With dynamite and crowbar and words unprintable.
Mid snow and ice with frost and gale,
They worked, they sweat, they swore.
They turned the inside from that fell
A thousand tons or more
And when it seemed all hope had gone
And fourteen days had passed
There seemed no life in that prison grim
And it seemed no life could last.
With crumbling rocks on either side
A final effort made
And Butcher crawled into the light
Alive and undismayed
But Badger paid the price in full
A price all brave hearts scorn.
So here’s a toast from Dalesmen all,
“Good hunting where he’s gone.”
It should be remembered that the hunting of foxes in that sheep-farming part of England was a serious business. Foxes that killed sheep were marked for extinction, and the foxhound and the terrier were the dalesmen’s warriors.
The horse has played no part in hunting here. The Lakeland hunts are all foot packs—even John Peel’s pack, known today as the Blencathra Foxhounds. The country is rough and difficult to traverse even on foot, and followers are by necessity tough, wiry, and fit. Indeed foot followers have fallen from the rocky crags to serious injury and even death.
“The huntsman and hunt followers retire inside the pub where a simple meal of bread and cheese will be eaten as the events of the day’s hunting are recounted and picked over in the smallest detail. An open fire blazes in the hearth and soon the room is filled with the wet-woolen smell of the men’s steaming, damp, tweed clothing as they begin to dry out. A rainstorm hammers outside against the lime-washed walls of the pub, but inside all is warm and cozy.’ [From the “Introduction.”]
The drink flows, and then the call, “Give us a song.”
Here’s a final sample—serious business with a twist of humor. It was written around the turn of the twentieth century, author anonymous.
A Hunt with the Eskdale
They met at dawn on Birkby Fell
Hounds and men together
To hunt the wily mountain fox
In grey November weather.
Li’le Tommy Dobson blew his horn
When hunters viewed a vixen
Condemned for killing four fat geese.
(The geese were Farmer Dixon’s.)
The drag was found, the hounds were off,
The doughty dalesmen followed
Tramping over heathered hills
And moor and wooded hollow.
Sly Reynard crossed a stubble field
Down in the lower dale,
Then most astutely swam the Esk
To wash away his trail.
The hunt renewed when Porter viewed
The quarry from a hill
Heading for a refuge in
The crags at Linbeck Ghyll.
Earthing in a stronghold there
The fox refused to yield
‘Til tackled by the terrier Rose
And routed from the bield.
And lest you deem them cruel
Who closed in at the death
Remember Farmer Dixon’s geese
Were also – out of breath.
Click here to order the book from the publisher. And visit Ron Black’s website (included in our list of Links We Like) dedicated to preserving the history, culture, stories, and songs of Lakeland hunting.
Posted August 6, 2011