OLD-TIME SPORTSWOMEN.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 132, 27 July 1911, Page 8

OLD-TIME SPORTSWOMEN.

The mediaeval sportswoman, whose prowess makes the theme for a lively article in the “Ladies’ Field,” seems to have set an example followed afar off even by the free and athletic outdoor girls of the twentieth century. Old writers and fourteenth century drawings convey a rather sniprising testimony to the manly pursuits of those otherwise quite nnemancipatcd ladies who lived in castle keeps. They hunted the stag and the fox, and went rabbiting with strange, small dogs and a ferret. Many curious illustrations show artistically-draped sportswomen cheering on their greyhounds in pursuit of the deer, setting their hounds on an extremely longtailed fox, or going afield with hawk on hand, and spaniels well-trained to Hush the partridge from the stubble. According to one artist of the period, oven the mighty boar himseU was not too fearful a quarry for ladies. He had a spirited sketch of a duel between a boar and a maiden who, looking extremely innocent and sweet in the long, embroidered gown with a low neck, which the period seems to regard most suitable for hunting wear—has thrust her spear down the boar’s throat, and is bolding on to it with an air of gentle precision that makes feminine even the rough art of pig-sticking. In hawking, some of the proceedings required a good re: ol nerves. fr!o wc are reminded in

“The Betrothed,” when the heroine and her attendant go out to kill a heron like free maids of the marches.” When' the prey is brought down, it is the falconer’s duty to assist the hank by thrusting the heron’s bill info the'earth, and breaking his legs, that the falcon may more easily despatch him. “Neither the sox nor the quality of the Lady Eveline excused her from becoming second to the falcon in this cruel manner.” It is pleasanter to see a mediaeval liuntswrir.an calling up her hounds, with that skill and “delight to use true measure in blowing,” which belonged to the earliest uses of the hunting horn, or to find her giving “a good greyhounde” as a love token to the specially favoured knight. In Tudor day, princesses wore great at deerstalking. Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., killed a buck with an arrow at one royal hunting party. And it was the long-bow with iVliich a fourteenth century huntress was equipped, as, long before the days of Harris tweeds, she stepped out, in the simple robes of her everyday life, to pursue the “craftic deare.”