Chasing Ghosts: Leaving Behind White Harts, Hounds, and Hunting

Imagine hearing tales of a rare white creature coursing through the forest.  Might the ghostly animal seem magical or like some rare omen?  We've been given a glimpse of this in our readings this semester

So far, the stories up through Malory contain tales of knights on horseback hunting deer, fox, and boar with their hounds. The move past Malory and into the picturesque poetry of Tennyson appears to be a long ride away from the visceral images of battle 
fields and hunting. The first half of the Arthurian semester was blood splattered and littered with body parts.  There was one hunting term I needed to look up.  One of them was "hart." In this part of the country we tend to call male deer (OED) bucks. Harts tend to be over five years old so they are larger and have bigger racks or antlers.



It is the white hart of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur that captured my attention.  Do white deer exist?  I have seen white-tailed deer, I like to call them Maryland’s “suburban lawn rats,” but never an albino deer.  

White hart- a buck

On rare occasions, I have seen a piebald deer.  Piebald deer are white tailed deer that have  brown and white patches of hair.  They are not part albino but have a genetic anomaly  that may present with other physical defects.  Albino deer, white deer herds, and piebald deer are unusual for good reason.

Piebald deer

Piebald fox--genetically domesticated.  You can get one for about $8000!

Unless living in an area covered in snow most of the year, a white deer and piebald deer would be at an extreme disadvantage.  White coloration, or absence of color, makes animals easier to see—good for the predators, human or otherwise. Some animals become piebald when they become genetically domesticated. When foxes become domesticated, in as little as 20 generations, they become piebald.  

The knights in Arthurian legend, and in history, did indeed hunt on horseback and with hounds or “stag” hounds.  In the United Kingdom, hunting means hunting on horseback accompanied by dogs. Americans often think of this as simply fox hunting.  Hunting became illegal in  most of the UK around  2005.  It is still practiced in Northern Ireland.  People are still allowed to “stalk” game on foot and shoot game—there are regulations, restrictions, and seasons.  In the United States each state has their own hunting and licensing regulations.

 In my neighborhood, people still foxhunt.