The Mardale Hunt: Chapter 2
Picking out the straysHere’s Chapter 2 of The Mardale Hunt by Ron Black. Through the courtesy of the author, Foxhunting Life is bringing you the entire book in installments every two weeks. You are free to download the book to your computer. We hope you enjoyed the first installment. “As long as there are sheep […]
The Mardale Hunt
Author Ron Black…In the north-eastern corner of the English Lake District there is a valley known as Mardale. This secluded valley contains a lake, under which rest the remains of a submerged village. The occupants of the village were shepherds who tended the local sheep high on the unforgiving fells surrounding the valley. Once a year they would meet to exchange strayed sheep, and from these humble beginnings The Mardale Shepherds Meet—best-known of all the meets of the Lakeland Fell foxhound packs—began.
It is often said that the origin of the meet is “older than the memory of man.” The introduction of the Ullswater Foxhounds increased the popularity of the meet, which soon attracted a much larger following than just the local shepherds. In the evening a public house called The Dun Bull was the venue for song and laughter. In time, The Mardale Shepherds Meet achieved worldwide fame.
Lakeland Hunting Memories
Do you know what “Forester’s Corn” is? (I’d be exceedingly impressed if you did!)
In the Lake District of northern England, during the eighteenth century, a custom by that name was practiced in which the bailiff kept dogs for the hunting and destroying of foxes and other vermin. The bailiff in the neighborhood of Patterdale received forty quarts of oats from every tenant for providing this service.
This little bit of hunting history was but one small gem gleaned from a story in a wonderful website we just discovered—Lakeland Hunting Memories—which I particularly commend to you. Whenever we find a worthy site we add it to our “Links We Like” directory (see left-hand column on the Home Page). This site, all about hunting in the Lake District of northern England, is beautifully written and sensitively presented by Ron Black in Cumbria, UK.