We have put together a cantering Dartmoor version of the hunting song Bold Reynard the Fox (Roud 1868) using words given to Baring-Gould by Roger Hannaford with the tune that he got from Sam Fone. We have then added one of my own songs which paints a slightly different picture. I have never ridden to hounds and never had any ambition to do so. It saddens me, though, that something that is so much a part of the fabric of our countryside and that is so valued by country people is being lost.

 

Sly Reynard

Come gentlemen, you who delight

In hunting that runner the fox

In a starlit or a moonshiny night

I go after poultry and ducks

In Ashbrittle Copse I lay down

Not thinking so soon for to die

Till I heard in the morn the brave sound of the horn

And away for my life I must fly

 

Of times I’ve been chased a score

By hounds and I’ve run like a doe

But ne’er been so harried before

Ne’er had such a breathing till now

For forty long miles I did run

I ran it in three hours space

Good lad! cried the huntsman, well done!

Such hounds never followed the chase

 

But as I jumped over a wall

A gamekeeper at me did let fly

O pardon, hounds, huntsman and all

From what I’ve received I must die

So now the old runner is dead

We must go to my Lord’s house and dine

And we’ll dip his forefoot in the bumper

And drink my Lord’s health in good wine

 

The Hunting Song

'Twas last Boxing Day morning, the rude hunting horn

Did break into my drink-sodden slumber

So I threw off my sheets, put my shoes on my feet

And out into the streets I did lumber

Where down at the castle I joined in the bustle

All watching the social elite

Who in crimson and leather had all come together

To join in the Boxing Day Meet

 

I stopped in for a gin at the old Castle Inn

Where I met my good friend Willie Brandon

We conceived a plan that we'd join in the van

And go follow the hunt on his tandem

So each bought a bottle and off we did wobble

With William doing the steering

But our chase was in vain since we stuck to the lane

And the hunt soon passed out of our hearing

 

We stopped for a breath and a drop of refreshment

The day being dry, warm and clear

And we sat on the bank and we talked and we drank

And we toasted the coming new year

When back to our ears came the barks and the cheers

And the usual old clatter and racket

We paid no heed at all 'till the fox jumped the wall

And fell right into William's jacket

 

Willie let out a shriek and leapt onto his bike

And he peddled towards the horizon

But he'd leapt on the rear from where he couldn't steer

When he crashed it was hardly surprising

Just then from the bush came the hounds in a rush

'Till in fox hounds our William wallowed

Willie took to his heels, the fox fled for the fields,

'Twas my fast running friend the pack followed

 

Now you may well wonder, at this canine blunder

But the scent they no more could discern-o

You see in the jostle they'd broke Willie's bottle

And our Willie's weakness was Pernod

The hunt had good sport but when Willie was caught

He avowed foreign liquors too risky

Since that Boxing Day meet he has been more discrete,

Now he never drinks nothing but whisky

 

Copyright © 1975 Martin Graebe