238 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



written about hunting — not even a joke in Punch. 

 Everyone knows Punch's huntsman who complained 

 on a hot April day that hounds could not hunt " with 

 all they nasty, stinkin' wi'lets about," but few have 

 read the lines written five centuries before : " Also 

 in that time the herbs be best and flowers in their 

 smelling, each one in their kind, and when the 

 hounds hope to scent the beast they hunt the sweet 

 smelling of the herbs takes the scent of the beast 

 from them." 



Old and valuable as are the maxims handed down 

 to us by Edward, Duke of York, they do not form the 

 oldest account of a staghunt at force. 



There has always been a tradition in Somerset- 

 shire that King Alfred — at least, that is the writer's 

 recollection of the legend as told him when a small 

 boy — nearly lost his life staghunting on Mendip by 

 riding over the edge of the Cheddar Cliffs. 



For years it was no more than a legend, but at 

 length that indefatigable body, the Somersetshire 

 Record Society, undertook an examination of the 

 records of the old borough of Axbridge, where the 

 Saxon kings undoubtedly had a borwe, or hunting 

 lodge. The legend turns out to be true, except that 

 instead of Alfred it was his grandson Edmund who 

 so nearly lost his life. An old manuscript tells the 

 story in most graphic terms :^ 



" When they reached the woods they took various 

 directions among the sylvan avenues ; and lo, from 

 the varied noise of the horns, and the barkings of the 



