5 April 2018
A Strange Course
Hunting Hares
by J.R. Thomas
Occasionally the Shaw Sheet pulls on its gumboots, finds a warm coat and gloves and battered hat, and wanders off to the country. The United Kingdom is an intensely urbanised land, probably the most built-up sizable country in the world, and one of the deepest divisions which characterise modern British society is that gulf between town and country.
So the urban dweller who sets off for a rural stroll does well to remember that he is entering a strange and distant land; and if on his perambulations through the fields and woods he comes into conversation with a country person, he should be careful what he says. Things are not always what he might assume. For instance: driving along a quiet country road the townie might see a collection of four-wheel drive vehicles in a field and by the lane side. They will no doubt be accompanied by a collection of persons, mainly male but some female, dressed for winter in a muddy land. Boots or wellies, water proof trousers covered in mud, long waxed coats, some additionally embellished with string, a few flat caps but also a lot of battered titfers of uncertain origins.
“Ah-ha” our visitor might think. “Country sports. Let me observe the arcane rituals of traditional countryperson in pursuit of bird or animal.” But the townie may find that he is not at all welcome to join the hunting party. In fact, he may find that, far from a warm welcome to join and learn about country sports, he is approached by several of the sporting set who urge him on his way. Urging him in terms that suggest a rapid departure and no return would be preferred.
After he drives on and finds a country pub or café, and seeks guidance as to the curious lack of welcome he has just received, he may encounter something even more bizarre; that several of those present rush out muttering what are politely known as oaths, and roar away in their muddy vehicles. Especially if a policeperson be amongst those present.
Hares are becoming rare animals, increasingly driven out by modern farming methods which ploughs out the meadow grass and wide field margins that are the habitat of these beautiful animals. They are the subject of much country lore – indeed they are the subject of a whole shelf of rural literature, the best of which is probably It’s My Delight by Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald (long out of print but worth seeking out for those drawn into the magic of the hare). Hares were commonly regarded as having magical or mystical qualities, and to the true country dweller, they still have that mystique. Which is not to say that the same country dweller might not occasionally shoot a hare for the supper pot, but at least he will treat it with respect as he carves the saddle and spoons out the redcurrant sauce.
They are of the rabbit genus, resembling large rabbits, with bigger bodies and larger rear legs, but unlike their rabbit cousins they do not live in burrows in woodland or hedge bottoms. The hare prefers to maintain maximum flexibility, living in a shallow nest in long grass called a “form”. They are solitary by nature, and most relevantly for our bunch of strange sportspersons, they are extremely fast movers, with a great ability to manoeuvre at high speed. Just like whippets and greyhounds and lurchers, and other forms of thin rangy dogs with long legs. Such as those that the townie visitor now recalls been present with the badly dressed group by the lane-side.
So why, you may ask, are one set of country types eating the hare, but so against another set of country types chasing it?
What the uninformed townie has just seen, and been shooed away from, is hare coursing. Hare coursing is the pursuit of a hare with perhaps two, maybe three, very fast dogs, the object been simply that the dogs catch the hare. Those whose ancient waxed coats are tied up with string and are so unwelcoming to observers are not in pursuit of a hot lunch or supper. Indeed, such is the ferocity of the pursuing dogs that when the hare is caught – and only one in three or four are caught, such is their turn of speed and manoeuvre – there will be little left for a human meal. It is, you may think, rather like fox hunting, though foxes are not edible, or wild boar hunting.
To some extent it is, and it shares another characteristic with fox hunting. It is illegal. Fox hunting of course presently continues, under very strict rules which provide that the fox should be shot and that the hounds are only there as a sort of support operation (though hounds being hounds, sometimes get out of control, dear oh dear). It is not illegal to shoot hares, and farmers like them so dispatched where large populations eat newly sown corn. But it is very illegal to chase and kill a hare with a dog in the United Kingdom (though not, for example, in the Republic of Ireland, no doubt another potential post Brexit problem for a leaky border). There was a long campaign to ban hare coursing in England, in which Harold Wilson when Prime Minister was personally involved (his Lancashire constituency was one of the centres of coursing), but attempts to ban it failed until the Blair government banned all forms of hunting with dogs in 2004.
Fox hunting, as we have noted, still goes on, albeit heavily circumscribed, but openly with all its traditional formality and ritual. So does hare coursing, but hare coursing was ever the sport of the poor and of those with an urge to gamble. Betting on the outcome of a fox hunt is unknown; indeed it would be hard to work out what one would actually bet on, and in any case country ritual would regard it as vulgar in the extreme. But modern technology has strange side-effects, one being that hare coursing is perhaps more widespread than ever. But not much among country people – those groups by the road side were most likely town folks, from the poorer end of town, maybe even the East End of London, or perhaps the Irish traveller community, and some would own the dogs used in the course. Many probably had money riding on which dog caught the hare, and one or two may have been carrying sophisticated video cameras to record the chase and relay it live to back rooms of pubs or clubs where further betting for serious amounts will have been taking place.
Farmers and other country dwellers do not like their hares been chased in this way – not least because the hare is rapidly vanishing from rural areas, especially near towns. But much more, they do not like the hare coursers who, been motivated by money more than simple sport, are increasingly ruthless – driving across crops, knocking down fences, smashing gates, and not above taking any other useful objects found in their way – such as farm machinery, lambs, and timber. The coursers are not to be tangled with lightly; farmers who have challenged them have had barns and machines burned and animals killed in fields. Even the police like to take them on only when probably prepared – there have been cases of police cars rammed and officers assaulted.
So, beware, simple townsfolk. Sport in the country is not always sporting, and jolly country types are not always friendly, and some sportspersons may just be interested in seeking out new prey. Even if town bred.
