Читать книгу The Master of Game - Edward of Norwich - Страница 16

CHAPTER VII

OF THE WOLF AND OF HIS NATURE

A WOLF is a common beast enough and therefore I need not tell of his make, for there are few men beyond the sea, that have not seen some of them. They are in their love in February with the females and then be jolly and do in the manner as hounds do, and be in their great heat of love ten or twelve days, and when the bitch is in greatest heat then if there are any wolves in the country they all go after her as hounds do after a bitch when she is jolly. But she will not be lined by any of the wolves save by one. She doth in such a wise that she will lead the wolves for about six or eight days without meat or drink and without sleep for they have so great courage towards her, that they have no wish to eat nor to drink, and when they be full weary she lets them rest until the time that they sleep, and then she claweth him with her foot and waketh him that seemeth to have loved her most, and who hath most laboured for her love, and then they go a great way thence and there he lines her. And therefore men say beyond the seas in some countries when any woman doth amiss, that she is like to the wolf bitch for she taketh to her the worst and the foulest and the most wretched and it is truth that the bitch of the wolf taketh to her the foulest and most wretched, for he hath most laboured and fasted¹ for her and is most poor, most lean and most wretched. And this is the cause why men say that the wolf saw never his father and it is truth sometimes but not always, for it happeneth that when she has brought the wolf that she loveth most as I have said, and when the other wolves awaken they follow anon in her track, and if they can find the wolf and the bitch holding together then will all the other wolves run upon him and slay him, and all this is truth in this case. But when in all the country there is but one wolf and one bitch of his kind then this rule cannot be truth.

And sometimes peradventure the other wolves may be awake so late that if the wolf is not fast with the bitch or peradventure he hath left her then he fleeth away from the other wolves, so they slay him not so in this case the first opinion is not true.

They may get young whelps at the year’s end, and then they leave their father and their mother. And sometimes before they are twelve months old if so be that their teeth are fully grown after their other small teeth which they had first, for they teethe twice in the year when they are whelps. The first teeth they cast when they are half a year old and also their hooks. Then other teeth come to them which they bear all their life-time and never cast. When these are full grown again then they leave their father and mother and go on their adventures, but notwithstanding that they go far they do not bide long away from each other and if it happens that they meet with their father and with their mother the which hath nourished them they will make them joy and great reverence alway. And also I would have you know that when a bitch and a wolf of her kind hath fellowship together they generally stay evermore together, and though they sometimes go to seek their feeding the one far from the other they will be together at night if they can or at the farthest at the end of three days. And such wolves in fellowship together get meat for their whelps the father as well as the mother, save only that the wolf eateth first his fill and then bears the remnant to his whelps. The bitch does not do so for she beareth all her meat to her whelps and eateth with them. And if the wolf is with the whelps when the mother cometh and she bringeth anything and the wolf has not enough he taketh the feeding from her and her whelps, and eateth his fill first, and then he leaveth them the remnant, if there be any, and if there be not any left they die of hunger, if they will, for he recketh but little so that his belly be full. And when the mother seeth that, and has been far to seek her meat she leaveth her meat a great way thence for her whelps, and then she cometh to see if the wolf is with them, and if he be there she stayeth till he be gone and then she bringeth them her meat. But also the wolf is so malicious that when he seeth her come without food he goeth and windeth her muzzle and if he windeth she hath brought anything he taketh her by the teeth and biteth her so that she must show him where she hath left her food. And when the bitch perceiveth that the wolf doth this when she returneth to her whelps she keepeth in the covert and doth not show herself if she perceiveth that the wolf is with them, and if he be there she hideth herself until the time he hath gone to his prey on account of his great hunger, and when he is gone she brings her whelps her food for to eat. And this is truth.

Some men say that she bathes her body and her head so that the wolf should wind nothing of her feeding when she cometh to them, but of this I make no affirmation.